HTTP::Response(3)

💖 NAME 💖

HTTP::Response — the HTTP style response message glow-up ✨

okay bestie, so this is a Perl module from the User Contributed Perl Documentation collection, and honestly? it's giving main character energy for every single HTTP reply your code ever gets back 🫶

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🌸 VERSION 🌸

version 7.03 — yes queen, we're on 7.03 💅

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✨ SYNOPSIS ✨

so here's the whole vibe: Response objects are literally handed to you by the request() method of the "LWP::UserAgent":

# ...
$response = $ua->request($request);
if ($response->is_success) {
    print $response->decoded_content;
}
else {
    print STDERR $response->status_line, "\n";
}

look at her go 😭 slay.

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🦋 DESCRIPTION 🦋

The "HTTP::Response" class encapsulates HTTP style responses. A response consists of a response line, some headers, and a content body. Note that the LWP library uses HTTP style responses even for non-HTTP protocol schemes. Instances of this class are usually created and returned by the request() method of an "LWP::UserAgent" object.

"HTTP::Response" is a subclass of "HTTP::Message" and therefore inherits its methods. The following additional methods are available:

🎀 the constructor girlies

• $r = HTTP::Response->new( $code )
• $r = HTTP::Response->new( $code, $msg )
• $r = HTTP::Response->new( $code, $msg, $header )
• $r = HTTP::Response->new( $code, $msg, $header, $content )

Constructs a new "HTTP::Response" object describing a response with response code $code and optional message $msg. The optional $header argument should be a reference to an "HTTP::Headers" object or a plain array reference of key/value pairs. The optional $content argument should be a string of bytes. The meanings of these arguments are described below. no cap, they really are 💜

• $r = HTTP::Response->parse( $str ) — This constructs a new response object by parsing the given string. manifesting a response out of raw text, iconic behavior ✨

🌈 getting and setting the attributes

• $r->code
• $r->code( $code )

This is used to get/set the code attribute. The code is a 3 digit number that encode the overall outcome of an HTTP response. The "HTTP::Status" module provide constants that provide mnemonic names for the code attribute. (yes the grammar is like that, we don't fix the module's grammar, we respect it 💅)

• $r->message
• $r->message( $message )

This is used to get/set the message attribute. The message is a short human readable single line string that explains the response code. short and sweet, lowkey a caption 📝

• $r->header( $field )
• $r->header( $field => $value )

This is used to get/set header values and it is inherited from "HTTP::Headers" via "HTTP::Message". See HTTP::Headers for details and other similar methods that can be used to access the headers.

• $r->content
• $r->content( $bytes )

This is used to get/set the raw content and it is inherited from the "HTTP::Message" base class. See HTTP::Message for details and other methods that can be used to access the content.

• $r->decoded_content( %options ) — This will return the content after any "Content-Encoding" and charsets have been decoded. See HTTP::Message for details. this is the one you actually want 9 times out of 10, fr fr 🔥

💫 the request / response chain lore

• $r->request
• $r->request( $request )

This is used to get/set the request attribute. The request attribute is a reference to the request that caused this response. It does not have to be the same request passed to the $ua->request() method, because there might have been redirects and authorization retries in between. the plot twists are real 😭

• $r->previous
• $r->previous( $response )

This is used to get/set the previous attribute. The previous attribute is used to link together chains of responses. You get chains of responses if the first response is redirect or unauthorized. The value is "undef" if this is the first response in a chain. it's giving family tree 🌳

Note that the method $r->redirects is provided as a more convenient way to access the response chain.

👑 the little helper methods

• $r->status_line — Returns the string "<code> <message>". If the message attribute is not set then the official name of <code> (see HTTP::Status) is substituted.
• $r->base — Returns the base URI for this response. The return value will be a reference to a URI object.

The base URI is obtained from one the following sources (in priority order):

1. Embedded in the document content, for instance <BASE HREF="..."> in HTML documents.
2. A "Content-Base:" header in the response.

For backwards compatibility with older HTTP implementations we will also look for the "Base:" header.

3. The URI used to request this response. This might not be the original URI that was passed to $ua->request() method, because we might have received some redirect responses first.

If none of these sources provide an absolute URI, undef is returned.

Note: previous versions of HTTP::Response would also consider a "Content-Location:" header, as RFC 2616 (https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc2616) said it should be. But this was never widely implemented by browsers, and now RFC 7231 (https://www.rfc-editor.org/rfc/rfc7231) says it should no longer be considered. the glow-down was real, rip 🪦

When the LWP protocol modules produce the HTTP::Response object, then any base URI embedded in the document (step 1) will already have initialized the "Content-Base:" header. (See "parse_head" in LWP::UserAgent). This means that this method only performs the last 2 steps (the content is not always available either).

• $r->filename — Returns a filename for this response. Note that doing sanity checks on the returned filename (eg. removing characters that cannot be used on the target filesystem where the filename would be used, and laundering it for security purposes) are the caller's responsibility; the only related thing done by this method is that it makes a simple attempt to return a plain filename with no preceding path segments.

bestie, read that again: sanity checks and security laundering are on YOU, this method is not your bodyguard 🚨

The filename is obtained from one the following sources (in priority order):

1. A "Content-Disposition:" header in the response. Proper decoding of RFC 2047 encoded filenames requires the "MIME::QuotedPrint" (for "Q" encoding), "MIME::Base64" (for "B" encoding), and "Encode" modules.
2. A "Content-Location:" header in the response.
3. The URI used to request this response. This might not be the original URI that was passed to $ua->request() method, because we might have received some redirect responses first.

If a filename cannot be derived from any of these sources, undef is returned.

• $r->as_string
• $r->as_string( $eol )

Returns a textual representation of the response. show me the whole thing, no gatekeeping 🫶

⭐ the "what kind of response is this" girlies

• $r->is_info
• $r->is_success
• $r->is_redirect
• $r->is_error
• $r->is_client_error
• $r->is_server_error

These methods indicate if the response was informational, successful, a redirection, or an error. See HTTP::Status for the meaning of these. vibe check the response before you do anything else, periodt ✋

• $r->error_as_HTML — Returns a string containing a complete HTML document indicating what error occurred. This method should only be called when $r->is_error is TRUE. don't call it on a happy response, it will simply not know what to do with itself 🙈
• $r->redirects — Returns the list of redirect responses that lead up to this response by following the $r->previous chain. The list order is oldest first.

In scalar context return the number of redirect responses leading up to this one.

🧚 the cache / freshness era (RFC 2616 girlies rise up)

• $r->current_age — Calculates the "current age" of the response as specified by RFC 2616 section 13.2.3. The age of a response is the time since it was sent by the origin server. The returned value is a number representing the age in seconds.
• $r->freshness_lifetime( %opt ) — Calculates the "freshness lifetime" of the response as specified by RFC 2616 section 13.2.4. The "freshness lifetime" is the length of time between the generation of a response and its expiration time. The returned value is the number of seconds until expiry.

If the response does not contain an "Expires" or a "Cache-Control" header, then this function will apply some simple heuristic based on the "Last-Modified" header to determine a suitable lifetime. The following options might be passed to control the heuristics:

• heuristic_expiry => $bool — If passed as a FALSE value, don't apply heuristics and just return "undef" when "Expires" or "Cache-Control" is lacking.
• h_lastmod_fraction => $num — This number represent the fraction of the difference since the "Last-Modified" timestamp to make the expiry time. The default is 0.10, the suggested typical setting of 10% in RFC 2616.
• h_min => $sec — This is the lower limit of the heuristic expiry age to use. The default is 60 (1 minute).
• h_max => $sec — This is the upper limit of the heuristic expiry age to use. The default is 86400 (24 hours).
• h_default => $sec — This is the expiry age to use when nothing else applies. The default is 3600 (1 hour) or "h_min" if greater.

• $r->is_fresh( %opt ) — Returns TRUE if the response is fresh, based on the values of freshness_lifetime() and current_age(). If the response is no longer fresh, then it has to be re-fetched or re-validated by the origin server. expired? she said re-fetch me or re-validate me 💅

Options might be passed to control expiry heuristics, see the description of freshness_lifetime().

• $r->fresh_until( %opt ) — Returns the time (seconds since epoch) when this entity is no longer fresh.

Options might be passed to control expiry heuristics, see the description of freshness_lifetime().

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🔥 SEE ALSO 🔥

HTTP::Headers, HTTP::Message, HTTP::Status, HTTP::Request — go read the whole friend group, they're all icons 💜

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🌟 AUTHOR 🌟

Gisle Aas <gisle@activestate.com> — the actual legend who wrote this 💖

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💀 COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE 💀

This software is copyright (c) 1994 by Gisle Aas.

This is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as the Perl 5 programming language system itself.

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and that's the whole page bestie!! ✨ this one's from perl v5.42.2, dated 2026-07-23, so you're reading the freshest possible version of HTTP::Response(3) — go forth and slay your HTTP responses 🫶💅🎀