HTTP::Response - HTTP style response message


Response objects are returned by the request() method of the LWP::UserAgent:

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


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:

$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 meaning these arguments are described below.

$r = HTTP::Response->parse( $str )

This constructs a new response object by parsing the given string.

$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 a HTTP response. The HTTP::Status module provide constants that provide mnemonic names for the code attribute.

$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.

$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 the HTTP::Headers manpage for details and other similar methods that can be used to access the headers.

$r->content( $content )

This is used to get/set the raw content and it is inherited from the HTTP::Message base class. See the HTTP::Message manpage 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 has been decoded. See the HTTP::Message manpage for details.

$r->request( $request )


$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.


Returns the string ``<code> <message>''. If the message attribute is not set then the official name of <code> (see the HTTP::Status manpage) is substituted.




  1. Embedded in the document content, for instance <BASE HREF=``...''> in HTML documents.

  2. A ``Content-Base:'' or a ``Content-Location:'' header in the response.

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


If neither of these sources provide an absolute URI, undef is returned.

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. This means that this method only performs the last 2 steps (the content is not always available either).

$r->as_string( $eol )

Returns a textual representation of the response.


These methods indicate if the response was informational, successful, a redirection, or an error. See the HTTP::Status manpage for the meaning of these.




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.


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 a number representing the freshness lifetime in seconds.

If the response does not contain an ``Expires'' or a ``Cache-Control'' header, then this function will apply some simple heuristic based on 'Last-Modified' to determine a suitable lifetime.




Returns the time when this entity is no longer fresh.


the HTTP::Headers manpage, the HTTP::Message manpage, the HTTP::Status manpage, the HTTP::Request manpage


Copyright 1995-2004 Gisle Aas.
