This class is the base class for Net::HTTP response classes.

About the Examples

Returned Responses

Method Net::HTTP.get_response returns an instance of one of the subclasses of Net::HTTPResponse:

Net::HTTP.get_response(uri)
# => #<Net::HTTPOK 200 OK readbody=true>
Net::HTTP.get_response(hostname, '/nosuch')
# => #<Net::HTTPNotFound 404 Not Found readbody=true>

As does method Net::HTTP#request:

req = Net::HTTP::Get.new(uri)
Net::HTTP.start(hostname) do |http|
  http.request(req)
end # => #<Net::HTTPOK 200 OK readbody=true>

Class Net::HTTPResponse includes module Net::HTTPHeader, which provides access to response header values via (among others):

  • Hash-like method [].

  • Specific reader methods, such as content_type.

Examples:

res = Net::HTTP.get_response(uri) # => #<Net::HTTPOK 200 OK readbody=true>
res['Content-Type']               # => "text/html; charset=UTF-8"
res.content_type                  # => "text/html"

Response Subclasses

Class Net::HTTPResponse has a subclass for each HTTP status code. You can look up the response class for a given code:

Net::HTTPResponse::CODE_TO_OBJ['200'] # => Net::HTTPOK
Net::HTTPResponse::CODE_TO_OBJ['400'] # => Net::HTTPBadRequest
Net::HTTPResponse::CODE_TO_OBJ['404'] # => Net::HTTPNotFound

And you can retrieve the status code for a response object:

Net::HTTP.get_response(uri).code                 # => "200"
Net::HTTP.get_response(hostname, '/nosuch').code # => "404"

The response subclasses (indentation shows class hierarchy):

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

Constants
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Attributes

The HTTP version supported by the server.

Read

The HTTP result code string. For example, ‘302’. You can also determine the response type by examining which response subclass the response object is an instance of.

Read

The HTTP result message sent by the server. For example, ‘Not Found’.

uri

Read

The URI used to fetch this response. The response URI is only available if a URI was used to create the request.

Read & Write

Set to true automatically when the request did not contain an Accept-Encoding header from the user.

Returns the value set by body_encoding=, or false if none; see body_encoding=.

Read & Write

Whether to ignore EOF when reading bodies with a specified Content-Length header.

Class Methods

true if the response has a body.

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Instance Methods

Returns the string response body; note that repeated calls for the unmodified body return a cached string:

path = '/todos/1'
Net::HTTP.start(hostname) do |http|
  res = http.get(path)
  p res.body
  p http.head(path).body # No body.
end

Output:

"{\n  \"userId\": 1,\n  \"id\": 1,\n  \"title\": \"delectus aut autem\",\n  \"completed\": false\n}"
nil

Sets the body of the response to the given value.

Sets the encoding that should be used when reading the body:

  • If the given value is an Encoding object, that encoding will be used.

  • Otherwise if the value is a string, the value of Encoding#find(value) will be used.

  • Otherwise an encoding will be deduced from the body itself.

Examples:

http = Net::HTTP.new(hostname)
req = Net::HTTP::Get.new('/')

http.request(req) do |res|
  p res.body.encoding # => #<Encoding:ASCII-8BIT>
end

http.request(req) do |res|
  res.body_encoding = "UTF-8"
  p res.body.encoding # => #<Encoding:UTF-8>
end
No documentation available

Gets the entity body returned by the remote HTTP server.

If a block is given, the body is passed to the block, and the body is provided in fragments, as it is read in from the socket.

If dest argument is given, response is read into that variable, with dest#<< method (it could be String or IO, or any other object responding to <<).

Calling this method a second or subsequent time for the same HTTPResponse object will return the value already read.

http.request_get('/index.html') {|res|
  puts res.read_body
}

http.request_get('/index.html') {|res|
  p res.read_body.object_id   # 538149362
  p res.read_body.object_id   # 538149362
}

# using iterator
http.request_get('/index.html') {|res|
  res.read_body do |segment|
    print segment
  end
}

Raises an HTTP error if the response is not 2xx (success).