HTTP::Headers::Util(3)User Contributed Perl DocumentationHTTP::Headers::Util(3)

NAME
       HTTP::Headers::Util - Header value parsing utility functions

SYNOPSIS
         use HTTP::Headers::Util qw(splitheaderwords);
         @values = splitheaderwords($h->header("Content-Type"));

DESCRIPTION
       This module provides a few functions that helps parsing and
       construction of valid HTTP header values.  None of the functions are
       exported by default.

       The following functions are available:

       splitheaderwords( @headervalues )
           This function will parse the header values given as argument into a
           list of anonymous arrays containing key/value pairs.  The function
           knows how to deal with ",", ";" and "=" as well as quoted values
           after "=".  A list of space separated tokens are parsed as if they
           were separated by ";".

           If the @headervalues passed as argument contains multiple values,
           then they are treated as if they were a single value separated by
           comma ",".

           This means that this function is useful for parsing header fields
           that follow this syntax (BNF as from the HTTP/1.1 specification,
           but we relax the requirement for tokens).

             headers           = #header
             header            = (token | parameter) *( [";"] (token | parameter))

             token             = 1*
             separators        = "(" | ")" | "<" | ">" | "@"
                               | "," | ";" | ":" | "\" | <">
                               | "/" | "[" | "]" | "?" | "="
                               | "{" | "}" | SP | HT

             quoted-string     = ( <"> *(qdtext | quoted-pair ) <"> )
             qdtext            = >
             quoted-pair       = "\" CHAR

             parameter         = attribute "=" value
             attribute         = token
             value             = token | quoted-string

           Each header is represented by an anonymous array of key/value
           pairs.  The value for a simple token (not part of a parameter) is
           "undef".  Syntactically incorrect headers will not necessary be
           parsed as you would want.

           This is easier to describe with some examples:

              splitheaderwords('foo="bar"; port="80,81"; discard, bar=baz');
              splitheaderwords('text/html; charset="iso-8859-1"');
              splitheaderwords('Basic realm="\\"foo\\\\bar\\""');

           will return

              [foo=>'bar', port=>'80,81', discard=> undef], [bar=>'baz' ]
              ['text/html' => undef, charset => 'iso-8859-1']
              [Basic => undef, realm => "\"foo\\bar\""]

       joinheaderwords( @arrays )
           This will do the opposite of the conversion done by
           splitheaderwords().  It takes a list of anonymous arrays as
           arguments (or a list of key/value pairs) and produces a single
           header value.  Attribute values are quoted if needed.

           Example:

              joinheaderwords(["text/plain" => undef, charset => "iso-8859/1"]);
              joinheaderwords("text/plain" => undef, charset => "iso-8859/1");

           will both return the string:

              text/plain; charset="iso-8859/1"

COPYRIGHT
       Copyright 1997-1998, Gisle Aas

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



perl v5.8.8                       2003-10-23            HTTP::Headers::Util(3)