Class: Net::HTTP

What Is This Library?

This library provides your program functions to access WWW documents via HTTP, Hyper Text Transfer Protocol version 1.1. For details of HTTP, refer [RFC2616] (www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2616.txt).

Examples

Getting Document From WWW Server

(formal version)

    require 'net/http'
    Net::HTTP.start('www.example.com', 80) { |http|
        response = http.get('/index.html')
        puts response.body
    }

(shorter version)

    require 'net/http'
    Net::HTTP.get_print 'www.example.com', '/index.html'

            or

    require 'net/http'
    require 'uri'
    Net::HTTP.get_print URI.parse('http://www.example.com/index.html')

Posting Form Data

    require 'net/http'
    Net::HTTP.start('some.www.server', 80) { |http|
        response = http.post('/cgi-bin/search.rb', 'query=ruby')
    }

Accessing via Proxy

Net::HTTP.Proxy creates http proxy class. It has same methods of Net::HTTP but its instances always connect to proxy, instead of given host.

    require 'net/http'

    proxy_addr = 'your.proxy.host'
    proxy_port = 8080
            :
    Net::HTTP::Proxy(proxy_addr, proxy_port).start('www.example.com') {|http|
        # always connect to your.proxy.addr:8080
            :
    }

Since Net::HTTP.Proxy returns Net::HTTP itself when proxy_addr is nil, there’s no need to change code if there’s proxy or not.

There are two additional parameters in Net::HTTP.Proxy which allow to specify proxy user name and password:

    Net::HTTP::Proxy(proxy_addr, proxy_port, proxy_user = nil, proxy_pass = nil)

You may use them to work with authorization-enabled proxies:

    require 'net/http'
    require 'uri'

    proxy_host = 'your.proxy.host'
    proxy_port = 8080
    uri = URI.parse(ENV['http_proxy'])
    proxy_user, proxy_pass = uri.userinfo.split(/:/) if uri.userinfo
    Net::HTTP::Proxy(proxy_host, proxy_port,
                     proxy_user, proxy_pass).start('www.example.com') {|http|
      # always connect to your.proxy.addr:8080 using specified username and password
            :
    }

Note that net/http never rely on HTTP_PROXY environment variable. If you want to use proxy, set it explicitly.

Following Redirection

    require 'net/http'
    require 'uri'

    def fetch( uri_str, limit = 10 )
      # You should choose better exception.
      raise ArgumentError, 'HTTP redirect too deep' if limit == 0

      response = Net::HTTP.get_response(URI.parse(uri_str))
      case response
      when Net::HTTPSuccess     then response
      when Net::HTTPRedirection then fetch(response['location'], limit - 1)
      else
        response.error!
      end
    end

    print fetch('http://www.ruby-lang.org')

Net::HTTPSuccess and Net::HTTPRedirection is a HTTPResponse class. All HTTPResponse objects belong to its own response class which indicate HTTP result status. For details of response classes, see section "HTTP Response Classes".

Basic Authentication

    require 'net/http'

    Net::HTTP.start('www.example.com') {|http|
      req = Net::HTTP::Get.new('/secret-page.html')
      req.basic_auth 'account', 'password'
      response = http.request(req)
      print response.body
    }

HTTP Response Classes

TODO: write me.

Switching Net::HTTP versions

You can use net/http.rb 1.1 features (bundled with Ruby 1.6) by calling HTTP.version_1_1. Calling Net::HTTP.version_1_2 allows you to use 1.2 features again.

    # example
    Net::HTTP.start { |http1| ...(http1 has 1.2 features)... }

    Net::HTTP.version_1_1
    Net::HTTP.start { |http2| ...(http2 has 1.1 features)... }

    Net::HTTP.version_1_2
    Net::HTTP.start { |http3| ...(http3 has 1.2 features)... }

This function is NOT thread-safe.

External Aliases

new	->	newobj
request_put	->	put2

Attributes

address	[R]	The host name to connect to.
close_on_empty_response	[RW]
open_timeout	[RW]	Seconds to wait until connection is opened. If the HTTP object cannot open a connection in this many seconds, it raises a TimeoutError exception.
port	[R]	The port number to connect to.
proxy_address	[R]
proxy_pass	[R]
proxy_port	[R]
proxy_user	[R]
read_timeout	[R]	Seconds to wait until reading one block (by one read(2) call). If the HTTP object cannot open a connection in this many seconds, it raises a TimeoutError exception.

Classes and Modules

Class Net::HTTP::Get
Class Net::HTTP::Head
Class Net::HTTP::Post
Class Net::HTTP::Put

Public Class methods

Proxy(p_addr, p_port = nil, p_user = nil, p_pass = nil)

Creates an HTTP proxy class. Arguments are address/port of proxy host and username/password if authorization on proxy server is required. You can replace the HTTP class with created proxy class.

If ADDRESS is nil, this method returns self (Net::HTTP).

    # Example
    proxy_class = Net::HTTP::Proxy('proxy.example.com', 8080)
                    :
    proxy_class.start('www.ruby-lang.org') {|http|
      # connecting proxy.foo.org:8080
                    :
    }

Net::HTTP (Class)