Class

An HTTP client API for Ruby.

Net::HTTP provides a rich library which can be used to build HTTP user-agents. For more details about HTTP see [RFC2616](www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2616.txt)

Net::HTTP is designed to work closely with URI. URI::HTTP#host, URI::HTTP#port and URI::HTTP#request_uri are designed to work with Net::HTTP.

If you are only performing a few GET requests you should try OpenURI.

Simple Examples

All examples assume you have loaded Net::HTTP with:

require 'net/http'

This will also require ‘uri’ so you don’t need to require it separately.

The Net::HTTP methods in the following section do not persist connections. They are not recommended if you are performing many HTTP requests.

GET

Net::HTTP.get('example.com', '/index.html') # => String

GET by URI

uri = URI('http://example.com/index.html?count=10')
Net::HTTP.get(uri) # => String

GET with Dynamic Parameters

uri = URI('http://example.com/index.html')
params = { :limit => 10, :page => 3 }
uri.query = URI.encode_www_form(params)

res = Net::HTTP.get_response(uri)
puts res.body if res.is_a?(Net::HTTPSuccess)

POST

uri = URI('http://www.example.com/search.cgi')
res = Net::HTTP.post_form(uri, 'q' => 'ruby', 'max' => '50')
puts res.body

POST with Multiple Values

uri = URI('http://www.example.com/search.cgi')
res = Net::HTTP.post_form(uri, 'q' => ['ruby', 'perl'], 'max' => '50')
puts res.body

How to use Net::HTTP

The following example code can be used as the basis of a HTTP user-agent which can perform a variety of request types using persistent connections.

uri = URI('http://example.com/some_path?query=string')

Net::HTTP.start(uri.host, uri.port) do |http|
  request = Net::HTTP::Get.new uri

  response = http.request request # Net::HTTPResponse object
end

Net::HTTP::start immediately creates a connection to an HTTP server which is kept open for the duration of the block. The connection will remain open for multiple requests in the block if the server indicates it supports persistent connections.

The request types Net::HTTP supports are listed below in the section “HTTP Request Classes”.

If you wish to re-use a connection across multiple HTTP requests without automatically closing it you can use ::new instead of ::start. request will automatically open a connection to the server if one is not currently open. You can manually close the connection with finish.

For all the Net::HTTP request objects and shortcut request methods you may supply either a String for the request path or a URI from which Net::HTTP will extract the request path.

Response Data

uri = URI('http://example.com/index.html')
res = Net::HTTP.get_response(uri)

# Headers
res['Set-Cookie']            # => String
res.get_fields('set-cookie') # => Array
res.to_hash['set-cookie']    # => Array
puts "Headers: #{res.to_hash.inspect}"

# Status
puts res.code       # => '200'
puts res.message    # => 'OK'
puts res.class.name # => 'HTTPOK'

# Body
puts res.body if res.response_body_permitted?

Following Redirection

Each Net::HTTPResponse object belongs to a class for its response code.

For example, all 2XX responses are instances of a Net::HTTPSuccess subclass, a 3XX response is an instance of a Net::HTTPRedirection subclass and a 200 response is an instance of the Net::HTTPOK class. For details of response classes, see the section “HTTP Response Classes” below.

Using a case statement you can handle various types of responses properly:

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

  response = Net::HTTP.get_response(URI(uri_str))

  case response
  when Net::HTTPSuccess then
    response
  when Net::HTTPRedirection then
    location = response['location']
    warn "redirected to #{location}"
    fetch(location, limit - 1)
  else
    response.value
  end
end

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

POST

A POST can be made using the Net::HTTP::Post request class. This example creates a urlencoded POST body:

uri = URI('http://www.example.com/todo.cgi')
req = Net::HTTP::Post.new(uri)
req.set_form_data('from' => '2005-01-01', 'to' => '2005-03-31')

res = Net::HTTP.start(uri.hostname, uri.port) do |http|
  http.request(req)
end

case res
when Net::HTTPSuccess, Net::HTTPRedirection
  # OK
else
  res.value
end

At this time Net::HTTP does not support multipart/form-data. To send multipart/form-data use Net::HTTPRequest#body= and Net::HTTPRequest#content_type=:

req = Net::HTTP::Post.new(uri)
req.body = multipart_data
req.content_type = 'multipart/form-data'

Other requests that can contain a body such as PUT can be created in the same way using the corresponding request class (Net::HTTP::Put).

Setting Headers

The following example performs a conditional GET using the If-Modified-Since header. If the files has not been modified since the time in the header a Not Modified response will be returned. See RFC 2616 section 9.3 for further details.

uri = URI('http://example.com/cached_response')
file = File.stat 'cached_response'

req = Net::HTTP::Get.new(uri)
req['If-Modified-Since'] = file.mtime.rfc2822

res = Net::HTTP.start(uri.hostname, uri.port) {|http|
  http.request(req)
}

open 'cached_response', 'w' do |io|
  io.write res.body
end if res.is_a?(Net::HTTPSuccess)

Basic Authentication

Basic authentication is performed according to [RFC2617](www.ietf.org/rfc/rfc2617.txt)

uri = URI('http://example.com/index.html?key=value')

req = Net::HTTP::Get.new(uri)
req.basic_auth 'user', 'pass'

res = Net::HTTP.start(uri.hostname, uri.port) {|http|
  http.request(req)
}
puts res.body

Streaming Response Bodies

By default Net::HTTP reads an entire response into memory. If you are handling large files or wish to implement a progress bar you can instead stream the body directly to an IO.

uri = URI('http://example.com/large_file')

Net::HTTP.start(uri.host, uri.port) do |http|
  request = Net::HTTP::Get.new uri

  http.request request do |response|
    open 'large_file', 'w' do |io|
      response.read_body do |chunk|
        io.write chunk
      end
    end
  end
end

HTTPS

HTTPS is enabled for an HTTP connection by Net::HTTP#use_ssl=.

uri = URI('https://secure.example.com/some_path?query=string')

Net::HTTP.start(uri.host, uri.port, :use_ssl => true) do |http|
  request = Net::HTTP::Get.new uri
  response = http.request request # Net::HTTPResponse object
end

Or if you simply want to make a GET request, you may pass in an URI object that has a HTTPS URL. Net::HTTP automatically turn on TLS verification if the URI object has a ‘https’ URI scheme.

uri = URI('https://example.com/')
Net::HTTP.get(uri) # => String

In previous versions of Ruby you would need to require ‘net/https’ to use HTTPS. This is no longer true.

Proxies

Net::HTTP will automatically create a proxy from the http_proxy environment variable if it is present. To disable use of http_proxy, pass nil for the proxy address.

You may also create a custom proxy:

proxy_addr = 'your.proxy.host'
proxy_port = 8080

Net::HTTP.new('example.com', nil, proxy_addr, proxy_port).start { |http|
  # always proxy via your.proxy.addr:8080
}

See Net::HTTP.new for further details and examples such as proxies that require a username and password.

Compression

Net::HTTP automatically adds Accept-Encoding for compression of response bodies and automatically decompresses gzip and deflate responses unless a Range header was sent.

Compression can be disabled through the Accept-Encoding: identity header.

HTTP Request Classes

Here is the HTTP request class hierarchy.

HTTP Response Classes

Here is HTTP response class hierarchy. All classes are defined in Net module and are subclasses of Net::HTTPResponse.

HTTPUnknownResponse

For unhandled HTTP extensions

HTTPInformation

1xx

HTTPContinue

100

HTTPSwitchProtocol

101

HTTPSuccess

2xx

HTTPOK

200

HTTPCreated

201

HTTPAccepted

202

HTTPNonAuthoritativeInformation

203

HTTPNoContent

204

HTTPResetContent

205

HTTPPartialContent

206

HTTPMultiStatus

207

HTTPIMUsed

226

HTTPRedirection

3xx

HTTPMultipleChoices

300

HTTPMovedPermanently

301

HTTPFound

302

HTTPSeeOther

303

HTTPNotModified

304

HTTPUseProxy

305

HTTPTemporaryRedirect

307

HTTPClientError

4xx

HTTPBadRequest

400

HTTPUnauthorized

401

HTTPPaymentRequired

402

HTTPForbidden

403

HTTPNotFound

404

HTTPMethodNotAllowed

405

HTTPNotAcceptable

406

HTTPProxyAuthenticationRequired

407

HTTPRequestTimeOut

408

HTTPConflict

409

HTTPGone

410

HTTPLengthRequired

411

HTTPPreconditionFailed

412

HTTPRequestEntityTooLarge

413

HTTPRequestURITooLong

414

HTTPUnsupportedMediaType

415

HTTPRequestedRangeNotSatisfiable

416

HTTPExpectationFailed

417

HTTPUnprocessableEntity

422

HTTPLocked

423

HTTPFailedDependency

424

HTTPUpgradeRequired

426

HTTPPreconditionRequired

428

HTTPTooManyRequests

429

HTTPRequestHeaderFieldsTooLarge

431

HTTPUnavailableForLegalReasons

451

HTTPServerError

5xx

HTTPInternalServerError

500

HTTPNotImplemented

501

HTTPBadGateway

502

HTTPServiceUnavailable

503

HTTPGatewayTimeOut

504

HTTPVersionNotSupported

505

HTTPInsufficientStorage

507

HTTPNetworkAuthenticationRequired

511

There is also the Net::HTTPBadResponse exception which is raised when there is a protocol error.

Constants
No documentation available
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Attributes
Read

The DNS host name or IP address to connect to.

Read

The port number to connect to.

Read & Write

The local host used to establish the connection.

Read & Write

The local port used to establish the connection.

No documentation available
No documentation available
Write
No documentation available
Write
No documentation available
Write
No documentation available
Read & Write

Number of seconds to wait for the connection to open. Any number may be used, including Floats for fractional seconds. If the HTTP object cannot open a connection in this many seconds, it raises a Net::OpenTimeout exception. The default value is 60 seconds.

Number of seconds to wait for one block to be read (via one read(2) call). Any number may be used, including Floats for fractional seconds. If the HTTP object cannot read data in this many seconds, it raises a Net::ReadTimeout exception. The default value is 60 seconds.

No documentation available

Seconds to wait for 100 Continue response. If the HTTP object does not receive a response in this many seconds it sends the request body. The default value is nil.

Read & Write

Seconds to reuse the connection of the previous request. If the idle time is less than this Keep-Alive Timeout, Net::HTTP reuses the TCP/IP socket used by the previous communication. The default value is 2 seconds.

No documentation available
Read & Write

Sets path of a CA certification file in PEM format.

The file can contain several CA certificates.

Read & Write

Sets path of a CA certification directory containing certifications in PEM format.

Read & Write

Sets an OpenSSL::X509::Certificate object as client certificate. (This method is appeared in Michal Rokos’s OpenSSL extension).

Read & Write

Sets the X509::Store to verify peer certificate.

Read & Write

Sets the available ciphers. See OpenSSL::SSL::SSLContext#ciphers=

key

Read & Write

Sets an OpenSSL::PKey::RSA or OpenSSL::PKey::DSA object. (This method is appeared in Michal Rokos’s OpenSSL extension.)

Read & Write

Sets the SSL timeout seconds.

Read & Write

Sets the SSL version. See OpenSSL::SSL::SSLContext#ssl_version=

Read & Write

Sets the minimum SSL version. See OpenSSL::SSL::SSLContext#min_version=

Read & Write

Sets the maximum SSL version. See OpenSSL::SSL::SSLContext#max_version=

Read & Write

Sets the verify callback for the server certification verification.

Read & Write

Sets the maximum depth for the certificate chain verification.

Read & Write

Sets the flags for server the certification verification at beginning of SSL/TLS session.

OpenSSL::SSL::VERIFY_NONE or OpenSSL::SSL::VERIFY_PEER are acceptable.

Address of proxy host. If Net::HTTP does not use a proxy, nil.

Read

Port number of proxy host. If Net::HTTP does not use a proxy, nil.

Read

User name for accessing proxy. If Net::HTTP does not use a proxy, nil.

Read

User password for accessing proxy. If Net::HTTP does not use a proxy, nil.

Class Methods

Creates an HTTP proxy class which behaves like Net::HTTP, but performs all access via the specified proxy.

This class is obsolete. You may pass these same parameters directly to Net::HTTP.new. See Net::HTTP.new for details of the arguments.

The default port to use for HTTP requests; defaults to 80.

Sends a GET request to the target and returns the HTTP response as a string. The target can either be specified as (uri), or as (host, path, port = 80); so:

print Net::HTTP.get(URI('http://www.example.com/index.html'))

or:

print Net::HTTP.get('www.example.com', '/index.html')

Gets the body text from the target and outputs it to $stdout. The target can either be specified as (uri), or as (host, path, port = 80); so:

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

or:

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

Sends a GET request to the target and returns the HTTP response as a Net::HTTPResponse object. The target can either be specified as (uri), or as (host, path, port = 80); so:

res = Net::HTTP.get_response(URI('http://www.example.com/index.html'))
print res.body

or:

res = Net::HTTP.get_response('www.example.com', '/index.html')
print res.body

The default port to use for HTTP requests; defaults to 80.

The default port to use for HTTPS requests; defaults to 443.

Creates a new Net::HTTP object without opening a TCP connection or HTTP session.

The address should be a DNS hostname or IP address, the port is the port the server operates on. If no port is given the default port for HTTP or HTTPS is used.

If none of the p_ arguments are given, the proxy host and port are taken from the http_proxy environment variable (or its uppercase equivalent) if present. If the proxy requires authentication you must supply it by hand. See URI::Generic#find_proxy for details of proxy detection from the environment. To disable proxy detection set p_addr to nil.

If you are connecting to a custom proxy, p_addr specifies the DNS name or IP address of the proxy host, p_port the port to use to access the proxy, p_user and p_pass the username and password if authorization is required to use the proxy, and p_no_proxy hosts which do not use the proxy.

Posts data to the specified URI object.

Example:

require 'net/http'
require 'uri'

Net::HTTP.post URI('http://www.example.com/api/search'),
               { "q" => "ruby", "max" => "50" }.to_json,
               "Content-Type" => "application/json"

Posts HTML form data to the specified URI object. The form data must be provided as a Hash mapping from String to String. Example:

{ "cmd" => "search", "q" => "ruby", "max" => "50" }

This method also does Basic Authentication iff url.user exists. But userinfo for authentication is deprecated (RFC3986). So this feature will be removed.

Example:

require 'net/http'
require 'uri'

Net::HTTP.post_form URI('http://www.example.com/search.cgi'),
                    { "q" => "ruby", "max" => "50" }

returns true if self is a class which was created by HTTP::Proxy.

Creates a new Net::HTTP object, then additionally opens the TCP connection and HTTP session.

Arguments are the following:

address

hostname or IP address of the server

port

port of the server

p_addr

address of proxy

p_port

port of proxy

p_user

user of proxy

p_pass

pass of proxy

opt

optional hash

opt sets following values by its accessor. The keys are ca_file, ca_path, cert, cert_store, ciphers, close_on_empty_response, key, open_timeout, read_timeout, ssl_timeout, ssl_version, use_ssl, verify_callback, verify_depth and verify_mode. If you set :use_ssl as true, you can use https and default value of verify_mode is set as OpenSSL::SSL::VERIFY_PEER.

If the optional block is given, the newly created Net::HTTP object is passed to it and closed when the block finishes. In this case, the return value of this method is the return value of the block. If no block is given, the return value of this method is the newly created Net::HTTP object itself, and the caller is responsible for closing it upon completion using the finish() method.

Turns on net/http 1.2 (Ruby 1.8) features. Defaults to ON in Ruby 1.8 or later.

Returns true if net/http is in version 1.2 mode. Defaults to true.

Instance Methods
No documentation available

utils

No documentation available
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Setter for the continue_timeout attribute.

Sends a COPY request to the path and gets a response, as an HTTPResponse object.

Sends a DELETE request to the path and gets a response, as an HTTPResponse object.

No documentation available
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Finishes the HTTP session and closes the TCP connection. Raises IOError if the session has not been started.

Retrieves data from path on the connected-to host which may be an absolute path String or a URI to extract the path from.

initheader must be a Hash like { ‘Accept’ => ‘/’, … }, and it defaults to an empty hash. If initheader doesn’t have the key ‘accept-encoding’, then a value of “gzip;q=1.0,deflate;q=0.6,identity;q=0.3” is used, so that gzip compression is used in preference to deflate compression, which is used in preference to no compression. Ruby doesn’t have libraries to support the compress (Lempel-Ziv) compression, so that is not supported. The intent of this is to reduce bandwidth by default. If this routine sets up compression, then it does the decompression also, removing the header as well to prevent confusion. Otherwise it leaves the body as it found it.

This method returns a Net::HTTPResponse object.

If called with a block, yields each fragment of the entity body in turn as a string as it is read from the socket. Note that in this case, the returned response object will not contain a (meaningful) body.

dest argument is obsolete. It still works but you must not use it.

This method never raises an exception.

response = http.get('/index.html')

# using block
File.open('result.txt', 'w') {|f|
  http.get('/~foo/') do |str|
    f.write str
  end
}

Gets only the header from path on the connected-to host. header is a Hash like { ‘Accept’ => ‘/’, … }.

This method returns a Net::HTTPResponse object.

This method never raises an exception.

response = nil
Net::HTTP.start('some.www.server', 80) {|http|
  response = http.head('/index.html')
}
p response['content-type']
No documentation available
No documentation available

Sends a LOCK request to the path and gets a response, as an HTTPResponse object.

Maximum number of times to retry an idempotent request in case of Net::ReadTimeout, IOError, EOFError, Errno::ECONNRESET, Errno::ECONNABORTED, Errno::EPIPE, OpenSSL::SSL::SSLError, Timeout::Error. Should be a non-negative integer number. Zero means no retries. The default value is 1.

Sends a MKCOL request to the path and gets a response, as an HTTPResponse object.

Sends a MOVE request to the path and gets a response, as an HTTPResponse object.

No documentation available

Sends a OPTIONS request to the path and gets a response, as an HTTPResponse object.

Sends a PATCH request to the path and gets a response, as an HTTPResponse object.

Returns the X.509 certificates the server presented.

Posts data (must be a String) to path. header must be a Hash like { ‘Accept’ => ‘/’, … }.

This method returns a Net::HTTPResponse object.

If called with a block, yields each fragment of the entity body in turn as a string as it is read from the socket. Note that in this case, the returned response object will not contain a (meaningful) body.

dest argument is obsolete. It still works but you must not use it.

This method never raises exception.

response = http.post('/cgi-bin/search.rb', 'query=foo')

# using block
File.open('result.txt', 'w') {|f|
  http.post('/cgi-bin/search.rb', 'query=foo') do |str|
    f.write str
  end
}

You should set Content-Type: header field for POST. If no Content-Type: field given, this method uses “application/x-www-form-urlencoded” by default.

Sends a PROPFIND request to the path and gets a response, as an HTTPResponse object.

Sends a PROPPATCH request to the path and gets a response, as an HTTPResponse object.

True if requests for this connection will be proxied

The address of the proxy server, if one is configured.

True if the proxy for this connection is determined from the environment

The password of the proxy server, if one is configured.

The port of the proxy server, if one is configured.

The username of the proxy server, if one is configured.

Setter for the read_timeout attribute.

Sends an HTTPRequest object req to the HTTP server.

If req is a Net::HTTP::Post or Net::HTTP::Put request containing data, the data is also sent. Providing data for a Net::HTTP::Head or Net::HTTP::Get request results in an ArgumentError.

Returns an HTTPResponse object.

When called with a block, passes an HTTPResponse object to the block. The body of the response will not have been read yet; the block can process it using HTTPResponse#read_body, if desired.

This method never raises Net::* exceptions.

Sends a GET request to the path. Returns the response as a Net::HTTPResponse object.

When called with a block, passes an HTTPResponse object to the block. The body of the response will not have been read yet; the block can process it using HTTPResponse#read_body, if desired.

Returns the response.

This method never raises Net::* exceptions.

response = http.request_get('/index.html')
# The entity body is already read in this case.
p response['content-type']
puts response.body

# Using a block
http.request_get('/index.html') {|response|
  p response['content-type']
  response.read_body do |str|   # read body now
    print str
  end
}

Sends a HEAD request to the path and returns the response as a Net::HTTPResponse object.

Returns the response.

This method never raises Net::* exceptions.

response = http.request_head('/index.html')
p response['content-type']

Sends a POST request to the path.

Returns the response as a Net::HTTPResponse object.

When called with a block, the block is passed an HTTPResponse object. The body of that response will not have been read yet; the block can process it using HTTPResponse#read_body, if desired.

Returns the response.

This method never raises Net::* exceptions.

# example
response = http.request_post('/cgi-bin/nice.rb', 'datadatadata...')
p response.status
puts response.body          # body is already read in this case

# using block
http.request_post('/cgi-bin/nice.rb', 'datadatadata...') {|response|
  p response.status
  p response['content-type']
  response.read_body do |str|   # read body now
    print str
  end
}

Executes a request which uses a representation and returns its body.

Sends an HTTP request to the HTTP server. Also sends a DATA string if data is given.

Returns a Net::HTTPResponse object.

This method never raises Net::* exceptions.

response = http.send_request('GET', '/index.html')
puts response.body

WARNING This method opens a serious security hole. Never use this method in production code.

Sets an output stream for debugging.

http = Net::HTTP.new(hostname)
http.set_debug_output $stderr
http.start { .... }
No documentation available
No documentation available

Opens a TCP connection and HTTP session.

When this method is called with a block, it passes the Net::HTTP object to the block, and closes the TCP connection and HTTP session after the block has been executed.

When called with a block, it returns the return value of the block; otherwise, it returns self.

Returns true if the HTTP session has been started.

Sends a TRACE request to the path and gets a response, as an HTTPResponse object.

No documentation available

Sends a UNLOCK request to the path and gets a response, as an HTTPResponse object.

Turn on/off SSL. This flag must be set before starting session. If you change use_ssl value after session started, a Net::HTTP object raises IOError.

Returns true if SSL/TLS is being used with HTTP.