What Is HTTP::Response?

This section describes what is HTTP::Response - a Perl class that represents the HTTP response message returned by a Web server.

As you can see from the LWP::UserAgent class documentation, when you send a HTTP request with get(), post() or request() method, the HTTP response returned from the Web server will be delivered a HTTP::Response object. So we need to learn how to use the HTTP:Response class.

What Is HTTP::Response? HTTP::Response, developed by Gisle Aas, is a Perl class that represents the HTTP response message returned by a Web server. An HTTP response consists of a response line, some headers, and a content body.

The current version of HTTP::Response is 6.04, which supports the following properties and methods:

Now we can do a better test with both LWP::UserAgent and HTTP::Response classes:

herong> perl -e "use LWP::UserAgent;
   print((new LWP::UserAgent())
   ->get('http://herongyang.com')->as_string());"

HTTP/1.1 200 OK
Connection: close
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Server: Apache
Content-Length: 9869
Content-Type: text/html
Client-Response-Num: 1
Link: <_herong.css>; rel="stylesheet"; type="text/css"
Title: 30 Programming Tutorial Books and Chinese Calendars
X-Meta-Description: A collection of free tutorial books by Herong ...
X-Meta-Keywords: Programming, Tutorials, Developer, Books, Free,  ...
X-Meta-Viewport: width=device-width, initial-scale=1, maximum-scale=1
...

?<?xml version="1.0"?>
<html><head>
<title>30 Programming Tutorial Books and Chinese Calendars</title>
<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"/>
...

Very nice, I got my home page content with 2 lines of Perl code!

Table of Contents

 About This Book

 Perl on Linux Systems

 ActivePerl on Windows Systems

 Data Types: Values and Variables

 Expressions, Operations and Simple Statements

 User Defined Subroutines

 Perl Built-in Debugger

 Name Spaces and Perl Module Files

 Symbolic (or Soft) References

 Hard References - Addresses of Memory Objects

 Objects (or References) and Classes (or Packages)

 Typeglob and Importing Identifiers from Other Packages

 String Built-in Functions and Performance

 File Handles and Data Input/Output

 Open Files in Binary Mode

 Open Directories and Read File Names

 File System Functions and Operations

 Image and Picture Processing

 Using DBM Database Files

 Using MySQL Database Server

 Socket Communication Over the Internet

 XML::Simple Module - XML Parser and Generator

 XML Communication Model

 SOAP::Lite - SOAP Server-Client Communication Module

 Perl Programs as IIS Server CGI Scripts

 CGI (Common Gateway Interface)

 XML-RPC - Remote Procedure Call with XML and HTTP

 RPC::XML - Perl Implementation of XML-RPC

 Integrating Perl with Apache Web Server

 CGI.pm Module for Building Web Pages

LWP::UserAgent and Web Site Testing

 What Is LWP::UserAgent?

What Is HTTP::Response?

 What Is HTTP::Request?

 LWP-UserAgent-GET.pl - Sending a GET Request

 LWP-UserAgent-GET-Redirect.pl - Following HTTP Redirects

 http-equiv="Refresh" Meta Tag not Followed

 LWP-UserAgent-POST.pl - Posting Form Data

 post() Method not Following Redirect Location

 LWP-UserAgent-POST-Redirect.pl - Posting with Redirects

 What Is HTTP::Cookies?

 LWP-UserAgent-Request.pl - GET, POST and Cookies

 LWP-UserAgent-Request.pl - Login to facebook.com

 HTTP::Cookies save() not Saving Temporary Cookies

 LWP-UserAgent-Request-Cookies.pl - Sending Request with Cookies

 Converting Perl Script to Executable Binary

 Managing Perl Engine and Modules on macOS

 Archived Tutorials

 References

 Full Version in PDF/EPUB