NAME

Dancer2::Core::Request - Interface for accessing incoming requests

VERSION

version 0.140000

SYNOPSIS

In a route handler, the current request object can be accessed by the request method, like in the following example:

    get '/foo' => sub {
        request->params; # request, params parsed as a hash ref
        request->body; # returns the request body, unparsed
        request->path; # the path requested by the client
        # ...
    };

A route handler should not read the environment by itself, but should instead use the current request object.

DESCRIPTION

This class implements a common interface for accessing incoming requests in a Dancer2 application.

METHODS

env()

Return the current PSGI environment hash reference.

path()

Return the path requested by the client.

method()

Return the HTTP method used by the client to access the application.

While this method returns the method string as provided by the environment, it's better to use one of the following boolean accessors if you want to inspect the requested method.

content_type()

Return the content type of the request.

content_length()

Return the content length of the request.

body()

Return the raw body of the request, unparsed.

If you need to access the body of the request, you have to use this accessor and should not try to read psgi.input by hand. Dancer2::Core::Request already did it for you and kept the raw body untouched in there.

uploads()

Returns a reference to a hash containing uploads. Values can be either a Dancer2::Core::Request::Upload object, or an arrayref of Dancer2::Core::Request::Upload objects.

You should probably use the upload($name) accessor instead of manually accessing the uploads hash table.

header($name)

Return the value of the given header, if present. If the header has multiple values, returns an the list of values if called in list context, the first one in scalar.

new()

The constructor of the class, used internally by Dancer2's core to create request objects.

It uses the environment hash table given to build the request object:

    Dancer2::Core::Request->new(env => \%env);

It also accepts the body_is_parsed boolean flag, if the new request object should not parse request body.

address()

Return the IP address of the client.

remote_host()

Return the remote host of the client. This only works with web servers configured to do a reverse DNS lookup on the client's IP address.

protocol()

Return the protocol (HTTP/1.0 or HTTP/1.1) used for the request.

port()

Return the port of the server.

request_uri()

Return the raw, undecoded request URI path.

user()

Return remote user if defined.

script_name()

Return script_name from the environment.

scheme()

Return the scheme of the request

serializer()

Returns the optional serializer object used to deserialize request parameters.

data()

If the application has a serializer and if the request has serialized content, returns the deserialized structure as a hashref.

secure()

Return true of false, indicating whether the connection is secure

uri()

An alias to request_uri()

is_get()

Return true if the method requested by the client is 'GET'

is_head()

Return true if the method requested by the client is 'HEAD'

is_post()

Return true if the method requested by the client is 'POST'

is_put()

Return true if the method requested by the client is 'PUT'

is_delete()

Return true if the method requested by the client is 'DELETE'

request_method

Alias to the method accessor, for backward-compatibility with CGI interface.

input_handle

Alias to the PSGI input handle (<request->env->{psgi.input}>)

to_string()

Return a string representing the request object (eg: "GET /some/path")

forward($request, $new_location)

Create a new request which is a clone of the current one, apart from the path location, which points instead to the new location. This is used internally to chain requests using the forward keyword.

Note that the new location should be a hash reference. Only one key is required, the to_url, that should point to the URL that forward will use. Optional values are the key params to a hash of parameters to be added to the current request parameters, and the key options that points to a hash of options about the redirect (for instance, method pointing to a new request method).

base()

Returns an absolute URI for the base of the application. Returns a URI object (which stringifies to the URL, as you'd expect).

uri_base()

Same thing as base above, except it removes the last trailing slash in the path if it is the only path.

This means that if your base is http://myserver/, uri_base will return http://myserver (notice no trailing slash). This is considered very useful when using templates to do the following thing:

    <link rel="stylesheet" href="[% request.uri_base %]/css/style.css" />

dispatch_path()

The part of the path after base. This is the path used for dispatching the request to routes.

uri_for(path, params)

Constructs a URI from the base and the passed path. If params (hashref) is supplied, these are added to the query string of the uri. If the base is http://localhost:5000/foo, request->uri_for('/bar', { baz => 'baz' }) would return http://localhost:5000/foo/bar?baz=baz. Returns a URI object (which stringifies to the URL, as you'd expect).

params($source)

Called in scalar context, returns a hashref of params, either from the specified source (see below for more info on that) or merging all sources.

So, you can use, for instance:

    my $foo = params->{foo}

If called in list context, returns a list of key => value pairs, so you could use:

    my %allparams = params;

Fetching only params from a given source

If a required source isn't specified, a mixed hashref (or list of key value pairs, in list context) will be returned; this will contain params from all sources (route, query, body).

In practical terms, this means that if the param foo is passed both on the querystring and in a POST body, you can only access one of them.

If you want to see only params from a given source, you can say so by passing the $source param to params():

    my %querystring_params = params('query');
    my %route_params       = params('route');
    my %post_params        = params('body');

If source equals route, then only params parsed from the route pattern are returned.

If source equals query, then only params parsed from the query string are returned.

If source equals body, then only params sent in the request body will be returned.

If another value is given for $source, then an exception is triggered.

is_ajax()

Return true if the value of the header X-Requested-With is XMLHttpRequest.

upload($name)

Context-aware accessor for uploads. It's a wrapper around an access to the hash table provided by uploads(). It looks at the calling context and returns a corresponding value.

If you have many file uploads under the same name, and call upload('name') in an array context, the accessor will unroll the ARRAY ref for you:

    my @uploads = request->upload('many_uploads'); # OK

Whereas with a manual access to the hash table, you'll end up with one element in @uploads, being the ARRAY ref:

    my @uploads = request->uploads->{'many_uploads'}; # $uploads[0]: ARRAY(0xXXXXX)

That is why this accessor should be used instead of a manual access to uploads.

cookies()

Returns a reference to a hash containing cookies, where the keys are the names of the cookies and values are Dancer2::Core::Cookie objects.

Common HTTP request headers

Commonly used client-supplied HTTP request headers are available through specific accessors, here are those supported:

accept

accept_charset

accept_encoding

accept_language

accept_type

agent (alias for user_agent)

connection

forwarded_for_address

forwarded_protocol

forwarded_host

host

keep_alive

path_info

referer

remote_address

user_agent

x_requested_with

With the exception of host, these accessors are lookups into the PSGI env hash reference.

Note that the PSGI specification prefixes client-supplied request headers with HTTP_. For example, a X-Requested-With header has the key HTTP_X_REQUESTED_WITH in the PSGI env hashref.

EXTRA SPEED

Install URL::Encode::XS and CGI::Deurl::XS for extra speed.

Dancer2::Core::Request will use it if they detect their presence.

SEE ALSO

Dancer2

AUTHOR

Dancer Core Developers

COPYRIGHT AND LICENSE

This software is copyright (c) 2014 by Alexis Sukrieh.

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

cpanm Dancer2

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install Dancer2