Windows PowerShell command on Get-command http

Manual Pages for UNIX Operating System command usage for man http

Tcl Bundled Packages http(1T)

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NAME

http - Client-side implementation of the HTTP/1.0 protocol.

SYNOPSIS

package require http ?2.5?

::http::config ?options?

::http::geturl url ?options?

::http::formatQuery key value ?key value ...?

::http::reset token ?why?

::http::wait token

::http::status token

::http::size token

::http::code token

::http::ncode token

::http::data token

::http::error token

::http::cleanup token

::http::register proto port command

::http::unregister proto

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DESCRIPTION

The http package provides the client side of the HTTP/1.0

protocol. The package implements the GET, POST, and HEAD operations of HTTP/1.0. It allows configuration of a proxy host to get through firewalls. The package is compatible with the Safesock security policy, so it can be used by untrusted applets to do URL fetching from a restricted set of hosts. This package can be extended to support additional

HTTP transport protocols, such as HTTPS, by providing a cus-

tom socket command, via ::http::register.

The ::http::geturl procedure does a HTTP transaction. Its

options determine whether a GET, POST, or HEAD transaction

is performed. The return value of ::http::geturl is a token

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for the transaction. The value is also the name of an array

in the ::http namespace that contains state information

about the transaction. The elements of this array are described in the STATE ARRAY section.

If the -command option is specified, then the HTTP operation

is done in the background. ::http::geturl returns immedi-

ately after generating the HTTP request and the callback is invoked when the transaction completes. For this to work, the Tcl event loop must be active. In Tk applications this

is always true. For pure-Tcl applications, the caller can

use ::http::wait after calling ::http::geturl to start the

event loop. COMMANDS

::http::config ?options?

The ::http::config command is used to set and query the

name of the proxy server and port, and the User-Agent

name used in the HTTP requests. If no options are specified, then the current configuration is returned. If a single argument is specified, then it should be one of the flags described below. In this case the current value of that setting is returned. Otherwise, the options should be a set of flags and values that define the configuration:

-accept mimetypes

The Accept header of the request. The default is */*, which means that all types of documents are

accepted. Otherwise you can supply a comma-

separated list of mime type patterns that you are willing to receive. For example, "image/gif, image/jpeg, text/*".

-proxyhost hostname

The name of the proxy host, if any. If this value is the empty string, the URL host is contacted directly.

-proxyport number

The proxy port number.

-proxyfilter command

The command is a callback that is made during

::http::geturl to determine if a proxy is required

for a given host. One argument, a host name, is added to command when it is invoked. If a proxy

is required, the callback should return a two-

element list containing the proxy server and proxy port. Otherwise the filter should return an empty list. The default filter returns the values of

the -proxyhost and -proxyport settings if they are

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non-empty.

-urlencoding encoding

The encoding used for creating the x-url-encoded

URLs with ::http::formatQuery. The default is

utf-8, as specified by RFC 2718. Prior to http

2.5 this was unspecified, and that behavior can be returned by specifying the empty string ({}),

although iso8859-1 is recommended to restore simi-

lar behavior but without the ::http::formatQuery

throwing an error processing non-latin-1 charac-

ters.

-useragent string

The value of the User-Agent header in the HTTP

request. The default is "Tcl http client package

2.4."

::http::geturl url ?options?

The ::http::geturl command is the main procedure in the

package. The -query option causes a POST operation and

the -validate option causes a HEAD operation; other-

wise, a GET operation is performed. The ::http::geturl

command returns a token value that can be used to get information about the transaction. See the STATE ARRAY

and ERRORS section for details. The ::http::geturl

command blocks until the operation completes, unless

the -command option specifies a callback that is

invoked when the HTTP transaction completes.

::http::geturl takes several options:

-binary boolean

Specifies whether to force interpreting the URL

data as binary. Normally this is auto-detected

(anything not beginning with a text content type or whose content encoding is gzip or compress is considered binary data).

-blocksize size

The block size used when reading the URL. At most size bytes are read at once. After each block, a

call to the -progress callback is made (if that

option is specified).

-channel name

Copy the URL contents to channel name instead of saving it in state(body).

-command callback

Invoke callback after the HTTP transaction com-

pletes. This option causes ::http::geturl to

return immediately. The callback gets an

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additional argument that is the token returned

from ::http::geturl. This token is the name of an

array that is described in the STATE ARRAY sec-

tion. Here is a template for the callback:

proc httpCallback {token} {

upvar #0 $token state

# Access state as a Tcl array

}

-handler callback

Invoke callback whenever HTTP data is available; if present, nothing else will be done with the HTTP data. This procedure gets two additional arguments: the socket for the HTTP data and the

token returned from ::http::geturl. The token is

the name of a global array that is described in the STATE ARRAY section. The procedure is expected to return the number of bytes read from the socket. Here is a template for the callback:

proc httpHandlerCallback {socket token} {

upvar #0 $token state

# Access socket, and state as a Tcl array

...

(example: set data [read $socket 1000];set nbytes [string length $data])

... return nbytes }

-headers keyvaluelist

This option is used to add extra headers to the HTTP request. The keyvaluelist argument must be a

list with an even number of elements that alter-

nate between keys and values. The keys become header field names. Newlines are stripped from the values so the header cannot be corrupted. For

example, if keyvaluelist is Pragma no-cache then

the following header is included in the HTTP request:

Pragma: no-cache

-progress callback

The callback is made after each transfer of data from the URL. The callback gets three additional

arguments: the token from ::http::geturl, the

expected total size of the contents from the

Content-Length meta-data, and the current number

of bytes transferred so far. The expected total size may be unknown, in which case zero is passed

to the callback. Here is a template for the pro-

gress callback:

proc httpProgress {token total current} {

upvar #0 $token state

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}

-query query

This flag causes ::http::geturl to do a POST

request that passes the query to the server. The

query must be an x-url-encoding formatted query.

The ::http::formatQuery procedure can be used to

do the formatting.

-queryblocksize size

The block size used when posting query data to the URL. At most size bytes are written at once.

After each block, a call to the -queryprogress

callback is made (if that option is specified).

-querychannel channelID

This flag causes ::http::geturl to do a POST

request that passes the data contained in chan-

nelID to the server. The data contained in chan-

nelID must be an x-url-encoding formatted query

unless the -type option below is used. If a

Content-Length header is not specified via the

-headers options, ::http::geturl attempts to

determine the size of the post data in order to create that header. If it is unable to determine the size, it returns an error.

-queryprogress callback

The callback is made after each transfer of data to the URL (i.e. POST) and acts exactly like the

-progress option (the callback format is the

same).

-timeout milliseconds

If milliseconds is non-zero, then ::http::geturl

sets up a timeout to occur after the specified number of milliseconds. A timeout results in a

call to ::http::reset and to the -command call-

back, if specified. The return value of

::http::status is timeout after a timeout has

occurred.

-type mime-type

Use mime-type as the Content-Type value, instead

of the default value (application/x-www-form-

urlencoded) during a POST operation.

-validate boolean

If boolean is non-zero, then ::http::geturl does

an HTTP HEAD request. This request returns meta information about the URL, but the contents are not returned. The meta information is available

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in the state(meta) variable after the transac-

tion. See the STATE ARRAY section for details.

::http::formatQuery key value ?key value ...?

This procedure does x-url-encoding of query data. It

takes an even number of arguments that are the keys and values of the query. It encodes the keys and values, and generates one string that has the proper & and =

separators. The result is suitable for the -query

value passed to ::http::geturl.

::http::reset token ?why?

This command resets the HTTP transaction identified by token, if any. This sets the state(status) value to why, which defaults to reset, and then calls the

registered -command callback.

::http::wait token

This is a convenience procedure that blocks and waits for the transaction to complete. This only works in trusted code because it uses vwait. Also, it's not

useful for the case where ::http::geturl is called

without the -command option because in this case the

::http::geturl call doesn't return until the HTTP tran-

saction is complete, and thus there's nothing to wait for.

::http::data token

This is a convenience procedure that returns the body element (i.e., the URL data) of the state array.

::http::error token

This is a convenience procedure that returns the error element of the state array.

::http::status token

This is a convenience procedure that returns the status element of the state array.

::http::code token

This is a convenience procedure that returns the http

element of the state array.

::http::ncode token

This is a convenience procedure that returns just the

numeric return code (200, 404, etc.) from the http ele-

ment of the state array.

::http::size token

This is a convenience procedure that returns the currentsize element of the state array, which represents the number of bytes received from the URL in

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the ::http::geturl call.

::http::cleanup token

This procedure cleans up the state associated with the connection identified by token. After this call, the

procedures like ::http::data cannot be used to get

information about the operation. It is strongly recom-

mended that you call this function after you're done with a given HTTP request. Not doing so will result in memory not being freed, and if your app calls

::http::geturl enough times, the memory leak could

cause a performance hit...or worse.

::http::register proto port command

This procedure allows one to provide custom HTTP tran-

sport types such as HTTPS, by registering a prefix, the default port, and the command to execute to create the Tcl channel. E.g.:

package require http

package require tls

::http::register https 443 ::tls::socket

set token [::http::geturl https://my.secure.site/]

::http::unregister proto

This procedure unregisters a protocol handler that was

previously registered via ::http::register.

ERRORS

The ::http::geturl procedure will raise errors in the fol-

lowing cases: invalid command line options, an invalid URL,

a URL on a non-existent host, or a URL at a bad port on an

existing host. These errors mean that it cannot even start the network transaction. It will also raise an error if it

gets an I/O error while writing out the HTTP request header.

For synchronous ::http::geturl calls (where -command is not

specified), it will raise an error if it gets an I/O error while reading the HTTP reply headers or data. Because

::http::geturl doesn't return a token in these cases, it

does all the required cleanup and there's no issue of your

app having to call ::http::cleanup.

For asynchronous ::http::geturl calls, all of the above

error situations apply, except that if there's any error while reading the HTTP reply headers or data, no exception is thrown. This is because after writing the HTTP headers,

::http::geturl returns, and the rest of the HTTP transaction

occurs in the background. The command callback can check if

any error occurred during the read by calling ::http::status

to check the status and if its error, calling ::http::error

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to get the error message. Alternatively, if the main program flow reaches a point where it needs to know the result of the asynchronous HTTP

request, it can call ::http::wait and then check status and

error, just as the callback does.

In any case, you must still call ::http::cleanup to delete

the state array when you're done. There are other possible results of the HTTP transaction

determined by examining the status from ::http::status.

These are described below. ok If the HTTP transaction completes entirely, then status will be ok. However, you should still check the

::http::code value to get the HTTP status. The

::http::ncode procedure provides just the numeric error

(e.g., 200, 404 or 500) while the ::http::code pro-

cedure returns a value like "HTTP 404 File not found". eof If the server closes the socket without replying, then no error is raised, but the status of the transaction will be eof. error The error message will also be stored in the error

status array element, accessible via ::http::error.

Another error possibility is that ::http::geturl is unable

to write all the post query data to the server before the server responds and closes the socket. The error message is saved in the posterror status array element and then

::http::geturl attempts to complete the transaction. If it

can read the server's response it will end up with an ok status, otherwise it will have an eof status. STATE ARRAY

The ::http::geturl procedure returns a token that can be

used to get to the state of the HTTP transaction in the form

of a Tcl array. Use this construct to create an easy-to-use

array variable:

upvar #0 $token state

Once the data associated with the URL is no longer needed, the state array should be unset to free up storage. The

::http::cleanup procedure is provided for that purpose. The

following elements of the array are supported: body The contents of the URL. This will be empty if

the -channel option has been specified. This

value is returned by the ::http::data command.

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charset The value of the charset attribute from the

Content-Type meta-data value. If none was speci-

fied, this defaults to the RFC standard iso8859-1,

or the value of $::http::defaultCharset. Incoming

text data will be automatically converted from

this charset to utf-8.

coding

A copy of the Content-Encoding meta-data value.

currentsize The current number of bytes fetched from the URL.

This value is returned by the ::http::size com-

mand. error If defined, this is the error string seen when the HTTP transaction was aborted.

http The HTTP status reply from the server. This value

is returned by the ::http::code command. The for-

mat of this value is: HTTP/1.0 code string

The code is a three-digit number defined in the

HTTP standard. A code of 200 is OK. Codes begin-

ning with 4 or 5 indicate errors. Codes beginning with 3 are redirection errors. In this case the

Location meta-data specifies a new URL that con-

tains the requested information.

meta The HTTP protocol returns meta-data that describes

the URL contents. The meta element of the state array is a list of the keys and values of the

meta-data. This is in a format useful for ini-

tializing an array that just contains the meta-

data:

array set meta $state(meta)

Some of the meta-data keys are listed below, but

the HTTP standard defines more, and servers are free to add their own.

Content-Type

The type of the URL contents. Examples include text/html, image/gif,

application/postscript and application/x-tcl.

Content-Length

The advertised size of the contents. The

actual size obtained by ::http::geturl is

available as state(size).

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Location An alternate URL that contains the requested data. posterror The error, if any, that occurred while writing the post query data to the server. status Either ok, for successful completion, reset for

user-reset, timeout if a timeout occurred before

the transaction could complete, or error for an error condition. During the transaction this value is the empty string. totalsize

A copy of the Content-Length meta-data value.

type A copy of the Content-Type meta-data value.

url The requested URL.

EXAMPLE

# Copy a URL to a file and print meta-data

proc httpcopy { url file {chunk 4096} } {

set out [open $file w]

set token [::http::geturl $url -channel $out \

-progress httpCopyProgress -blocksize $chunk]

close $out

# This ends the line started by httpCopyProgress

puts stderr ""

upvar #0 $token state

set max 0

foreach {name value} $state(meta) {

if {[string length $name] > $max} {

set max [string length $name]

}

if {[regexp -nocase ^location$ $name]} {

# Handle URL redirects

puts stderr "Location:$value"

return [httpcopy [string trim $value] $file $chunk]

} } incr max

foreach {name value} $state(meta) {

puts [format "%-*s %s" $max $name: $value]

}

return $token

}

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proc httpCopyProgress {args} {

puts -nonewline stderr .

flush stderr }

ATTRIBUTES

See attributes(5) for descriptions of the following attri-

butes:

_______________________________________

| ATTRIBUTE TYPE | ATTRIBUTE VALUE|

|____________________|__________________|_

| Availability | runtime/tcl-8 |

|____________________|__________________|_

| Interface Stability| Uncommitted |

|____________________|_________________|

NOTES