AnyEvent::HTTP - simple but non-blocking HTTP/HTTPS client
use AnyEvent::HTTP; http_get "http://www.nethype.de/", sub { print $_[1] }; # ... do something else here
This module is an AnyEvent user, you need to make sure that you use and run a supported event loop.
This module implements a simple, stateless and non-blocking HTTP client. It supports GET, POST and other request methods, cookies and more, all on a very low level. It can follow redirects supports proxies and automatically limits the number of connections to the values specified in the RFC.
It should generally be a "good client" that is enough for most HTTP tasks. Simple tasks should be simple, but complex tasks should still be possible as the user retains control over request and response headers.
The caller is responsible for authentication management, cookies (if the simplistic implementation in this module doesn't suffice), referer and other high-level protocol details for which this module offers only limited support.
Executes an HTTP-GET request. See the http_request function for details on additional parameters.
Executes an HTTP-HEAD request. See the http_request function for details on additional parameters.
Executes an HTTP-POST request with a request body of $bod. See the http_request function for details on additional parameters.
$bod
Executes a HTTP request of type $method (e.g. GET, POST). The URL must be an absolute http or https URL.
$method
GET
POST
The callback will be called with the response data as first argument (or undef if it wasn't available due to errors), and a hash-ref with response headers as second argument.
undef
All the headers in that hash are lowercased. In addition to the response headers, the "pseudo-headers" HTTPVersion, Status and Reason contain the three parts of the HTTP Status-Line of the same name. The pseudo-header URL contains the original URL (which can differ from the requested URL when following redirects).
HTTPVersion
Status
Reason
URL
If the server sends a header multiple lines, then their contents will be joined together with \x00.
\x00
If an internal error occurs, such as not being able to resolve a hostname, then $data will be undef, $headers->{Status} will be 599 and the Reason pseudo-header will contain an error message.
$data
$headers->{Status}
599
A typical callback might look like this:
sub { my ($body, $hdr) = @_; if ($hdr->{Status} =~ /^2/) { ... everything should be ok } else { print "error, $hdr->{Status} $hdr->{Reason}\n"; } }
Additional parameters are key-value pairs, and are fully optional. They include:
Whether to recurse requests or not, e.g. on redirects, authentication retries and so on, and how often to do so.
The request headers to use. Currently, http_request may provide its own Host:, Content-Length:, Connection: and Cookie: headers and will provide defaults for User-Agent: and Referer:.
http_request
Host:
Content-Length:
Connection:
Cookie:
User-Agent:
Referer:
The time-out to use for various stages - each connect attempt will reset the timeout, as will read or write activity. Default timeout is 5 minutes.
Use the given http proxy for all requests. If not specified, then the default proxy (as specified by $ENV{http_proxy}) is used.
$ENV{http_proxy}
$scheme must be either missing or http for HTTP, or https for HTTPS.
$scheme
http
https
The request body, usually empty. Will be-sent as-is (future versions of this module might offer more options).
Passing this parameter enables (simplified) cookie-processing, loosely based on the original netscape specification.
The $hash_ref must be an (initially empty) hash reference which will get updated automatically. It is possible to save the cookie_jar to persistent storage with something like JSON or Storable, but this is not recommended, as expire times are currently being ignored.
$hash_ref
Note that this cookie implementation is not of very high quality, nor meant to be complete. If you want complete cookie management you have to do that on your own. cookie_jar is meant as a quick fix to get some cookie-using sites working. Cookies are a privacy disaster, do not use them unless required to.
cookie_jar
Example: make a simple HTTP GET request for http://www.nethype.de/
http_request GET => "http://www.nethype.de/", sub { my ($body, $hdr) = @_; print "$body\n"; };
Example: make a HTTP HEAD request on https://www.google.com/, use a timeout of 30 seconds.
http_request GET => "https://www.google.com", timeout => 30, sub { my ($body, $hdr) = @_; use Data::Dumper; print Dumper $hdr; } ;
Sets the default proxy server to use. The proxy-url must begin with a string of the form http://host:port (optionally https:...).
http://host:port
https:...
The default value for the recurse request parameter (default: 10).
recurse
10
The default value for the User-Agent header (the default is Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; AnyEvent::HTTP/$VERSION; +http://software.schmorp.de/pkg/AnyEvent)).
User-Agent
Mozilla/5.0 (compatible; AnyEvent::HTTP/$VERSION; +http://software.schmorp.de/pkg/AnyEvent)
The maximum number of persistent connections to keep open (default: 8).
Not implemented currently.
The maximum time to cache a persistent connection, in seconds (default: 2).
The number of active connections. This is not the number of currently running requests, but the number of currently open and non-idle TCP connections. This number of can be useful for load-leveling.
AnyEvent.
Marc Lehmann <schmorp@schmorp.de> http://home.schmorp.de/
To install AnyEvent::HTTP, copy and paste the appropriate command in to your terminal.
cpanm
cpanm AnyEvent::HTTP
CPAN shell
perl -MCPAN -e shell install AnyEvent::HTTP
For more information on module installation, please visit the detailed CPAN module installation guide.