post() Method not Following Redirect Location

This section provides a tutorial example showing that the LWP::UserAgent post() method does not follow the redirect 'Location:' header line in the HTTP response header.

Before changing our tests to play with cookies, I want to verify how the LWP::UserAgent post() method behave on HTTP redirect headers.

Let's try it with my CGI script http://localhost/CGI-pm-Redirect-URI.pl running on my local Apache Web server as described in previous tutorials.

herong> LWP-UserAgent-Post.pl
   http://localhost/CGI-pm-Redirect-URI.pl
   uri=http://localhost/hello.html

POST http://localhost/CGI-pm-Redirect-URI.pl
User-Agent: Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 6.1)
Content-Length: 39
Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded

uri=http%3A%2F%2Flocalhost%2Fhello.html

HTTP/1.1 302 Found
Connection: close
Location: http://localhost/hello.html
Server: Apache/2.2.25 (Win32)
Content-Length: 0
Content-Type: text/plain
Client-Response-Num: 1

As you can see in the output, the default behavior of LWP::UserAgent post() method does not follow the HTTP redirect header, "Location: http://localhost/hello.html" in the response header.

We need to do some research to find out how configure the post() method to follow HTTP redirects. See the next tutorial for more details.

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