Request: HTTP Request Handling

In reqres: Powerful Classes for HTTP Requests and Responses

HTTP Request Handling

Description

This class wraps all functionality related to extracting information from a http request. Much of the functionality is inspired by the Request class in Express.js, so the documentation for this will complement this document. As reqres is build on top of the Rook specifications the Request object is initialized from a Rook-compliant object. This will often be the request object provided by the httpuv framework. While it shouldn't be needed, the original Rook object is always accessible and can be modified, though any modifications will not propagate to derived values in the Request object (e.g. changing the HTTP_HOST element of the Rook object will not change the host field of the Request object). Because of this, direct manipulation of the Rook object is generally discouraged.

Usage

as.Request(x, ...)

is.Request(x)

Arguments

x	An object coercible to a Request.
...	Parameters passed on to Request$new()

Value

A Request object (for as.Request()) or a logical indicating whether the object is a Request (for is.Request())

Initialization

A new 'Request'-object is initialized using the new() method on the generator:

Usage

req <- Request$new(rook, trust = FALSE)

Active bindings

trust

A logical indicating whether the request is trusted. Mutable

method

A string indicating the request method (in lower case, e.g. 'get', 'put', etc.). Immutable

body

An object holding the body of the request. This is an empty string by default and needs to be populated using the set_body() method (this is often done using a body parser that accesses the Rook$input stream). Immutable

session

The content of the session cookie. If session cookies has not been activated it will be an empty write-protected list. If session cookies are activated but the request did not contain one it will be an empty list. The content of this field will be send encrypted as part of the response according to the cookie settings in ⁠$session_cookie_settings⁠. This field is reflected in the Response$session field and using either produces the same result

has_session_cookie

Query whether the request came with a session cookie Immutable

session_cookie_settings

Get the settings for the session cookie as they were provided during initialisation cookie Immutable

has_key

Query whether the request was initialised with an encryption key Immutable

compression_limit

Query the compression limit the request was initialized with Immutable

cookies

Access a named list of all cookies in the request. These have been URI decoded. Immutable

headers

Access a named list of all headers in the request. In order to follow R variable naming standards - have been substituted with ⁠_⁠. Use the get_header() method to lookup based on the correct header name. Immutable

host

Return the domain of the server given by the "Host" header if trust == FALSE. If trust == true returns the X-Forwarded-Host instead. Immutable

ip

Returns the remote address of the request if trust == FALSE. If trust == TRUE it will instead return the first value of the X-Forwarded-For header. Immutable

ips

If trust == TRUE it will return the full list of ips in the X-Forwarded-For header. If trust == FALSE it will return an empty vector. Immutable

protocol

Returns the protocol (e.g. 'http') used for the request. If trust == TRUE it will use the value of the X-Forwarded-Proto header. Immutable

root

The mount point of the application receiving this request. Can be empty if the application is mounted on the server root. Immutable

path

The part of the url following the root. Defines the local target of the request (independent of where it is mounted). Immutable

url

The full URL of the request. Immutable

query

The query string of the request (anything following "?" in the URL) parsed into a named list. The query has been url decoded and "+" has been substituted with space. Multiple queries are expected to be separated by either "&" or "|". Immutable

query_delim

The delimiter used for specifying multiple values in a query. If NULL then queries are expected to contain multiple key-value pairs for the same key in order to provide an array, e.g. ?arg1=3&arg1=7. If setting it to ⁠",""⁠, "|", or " " then an array can be provided in a single key-value pair, e.g. ?arg1=3|7

querystring

The unparsed query string of the request, including "?". If no query string exists it will be "" rather than "?"

xhr

A logical indicating whether the X-Requested-With header equals XMLHttpRequest thus indicating that the request was performed using JavaScript library such as jQuery. Immutable

secure

A logical indicating whether the request was performed using a secure connection, i.e. protocol == 'https'. Immutable

origin

The original object used to create the Request object. As reqres currently only works with rook this will always return the original rook object. Changing this will force the request to reparse itself.

response

If a Response object has been created for this request it is accessible through this field. Immutable

locked

Set the locked status on the request. This flag does not result in any different behaviour in the request but can be used by frameworks to signal that the request should not be altered in some way

response_headers

The list of headers the response is prepopulated with Immutable

Methods

Public methods

• Request$new()

• Request$print()

• Request$set_body()

• Request$set_cookies()

• Request$accepts()

• Request$accepts_charsets()

• Request$accepts_encoding()

• Request$accepts_language()

• Request$is()

• Request$get_header()

• Request$has_header()

• Request$respond()

• Request$parse()

• Request$parse_raw()

• Request$as_message()

• Request$encode_string()

• Request$decode_string()

• Request$clear()

• Request$forward()

• Request$clone()

---

Method new()

Create a new request from a rook object

Usage

Request$new(
  rook,
  trust = FALSE,
  key = NULL,
  session_cookie = NULL,
  compression_limit = 0,
  query_delim = NULL,
  response_headers = list()
)

Arguments

rook

The rook object to base the request on

trust

Is this request trusted blindly. If TRUE ⁠X-Forwarded-*⁠ headers will be returned when querying host, ip, and protocol

key

A 32-bit secret key as a hex encoded string or a raw vector to use for ⁠$encode_string()⁠ and ⁠$decode_string()⁠ and by extension to encrypt a session cookie. It must be given to turn on session cookie support. A valid key can be generated using random_key(). NEVER STORE THE KEY IN PLAIN TEXT. Optimalle use the keyring package to store it or set it as an environment variable

session_cookie

Settings for the session cookie created using session_cookie(). Will be ignored if key is not provided to ensure session cookies are properly encrypted

compression_limit

The size threshold in bytes for trying to compress the response body (it is still dependant on content negotiation)

query_delim

The delimiter to split array-type query arguments by

response_headers

A list of headers the response should be prepopulated with. All names must be in lower case and all elements must be character vectors. This is not checked but assumed

---

Method print()

Pretty printing of the object

Usage

Request$print(...)

Arguments

...

ignored

---

Method set_body()

Sets the content of the request body. This method should mainly be used in concert with a body parser that reads the rook$input stream

Usage

Request$set_body(content)

Arguments

content

An R object representing the body of the request

---

Method set_cookies()

Sets the cookies of the request. The cookies are automatically parsed and populated, so this method is mainly available to facilitate cookie signing and encryption

Usage

Request$set_cookies(cookies)

Arguments

cookies

A named list of cookie values

---

Method accepts()

Given a vector of response content types it returns the preferred one based on the Accept header.

Usage

Request$accepts(types)

Arguments

types

A vector of types

---

Method accepts_charsets()

Given a vector of possible character encodings it returns the preferred one based on the Accept-Charset header.

Usage

Request$accepts_charsets(charsets)

Arguments

charsets

A vector of charsets

---

Method accepts_encoding()

Given a vector of possible content encodings (usually compression algorithms) it selects the preferred one based on the Accept-Encoding header. If there is no match it will return "identity" signaling no compression.

Usage

Request$accepts_encoding(encoding)

Arguments

encoding

A vector of encoding names

---

Method accepts_language()

Given a vector of possible content languages it selects the best one based on the Accept-Language header.

Usage

Request$accepts_language(language)

Arguments

language

A vector of languages

---

Method is()

Queries whether the body of the request is in a given format by looking at the Content-Type header. Used for selecting the best parsing method.

Usage

Request$is(type)

Arguments

type

A vector of content types to check for. Can be fully qualified MIME types, a file extension, or a mime type with wildcards

---

Method get_header()

Get the header of the specified name.

Usage

Request$get_header(name)

Arguments

name

The name of the header to get

---

Method has_header()

Test for the existence of any header given by name

Usage

Request$has_header(name)

Arguments

name

The name of the header to look for

---

Method respond()

Creates a new Response object from the request

Usage

Request$respond()

---

Method parse()

Based on provided parsers it selects the appropriate one by looking at the Content-Type header and assigns the result to the request body. A parser is a function accepting a raw vector, and a named list of additional directives, and returns an R object of any kind (if the parser knows the input to be plain text, simply wrap it in rawToChar()). If the body is compressed, it will be decompressed based on the Content-Encoding header prior to passing it on to the parser. See parsers for a list of pre-supplied parsers. Parsers are either supplied in a named list or as named arguments to the parse method. The names should correspond to mime types or known file extensions. If autofail = TRUE the response will throw an appropriate abort code if failing to parse the body. parse() returns TRUE if parsing was successful and FALSE if not

Usage

Request$parse(..., autofail = TRUE)

Arguments

...

A named set of parser functions

autofail

Automatically populate the response if parsing fails

---

Method parse_raw()

This is a simpler version of the parse() method. It will attempt to decompress the body and set the body field to the resulting raw vector. It is then up to the server to decide how to handle the payload. It returns TRUE if successful and FALSE otherwise.

Usage

Request$parse_raw(autofail = TRUE)

Arguments

autofail

Automatically populate the response if parsing fails

---

Method as_message()

Prints a HTTP representation of the request to the output stream.

Usage

Request$as_message()

---

Method encode_string()

base64-encode a string. If a key has been provided during initialisation the string is first encrypted and the final result is a combination of the encrypted text and the nonce, both base64 encoded and combined with a "_".

Usage

Request$encode_string(val)

Arguments

val

A single string to encrypt

---

Method decode_string()

base64-decodes a string. If a key has been provided during initialisation the input is first split by "_" and then the two parts are base64 decoded and decrypted. Otherwise the input is base64-decoded as-is. It will always hold that val == decode_string(encode_string(val)).

Usage

Request$decode_string(val)

Arguments

val

A single string to encrypt

---

Method clear()

Clears the content of the request and, if created, the related response. This method exists only to allow reuse of the request and response object to save a few milliseconds in latency. Use with caution and see e.g. how fiery maintains a poll of request objects

Usage

Request$clear()

---

Method forward()

Forward a request to a new url, optionally setting different headers, queries, etc. Uses curl and mirai under the hood and returns a promise

Usage

Request$forward(
  url,
  query = NULL,
  method = NULL,
  headers = NULL,
  body = NULL,
  return = NULL,
  ...
)

Arguments

url

The url to forward to

query

Optional querystring to append to url. If NULL the query string of the current request will be used

method

The HTTP method to use. If NULL the method of the current request will be used

headers

A list of headers to add to the headers of the current request. You can remove a header from the current request by setting it to NULL here

body

The body to send with the forward. If NULL the body of the current request will be used

return

A function that takes in the fulfilled response object and whose return value is returned by the promise

...

ignored

---

Method clone()

The objects of this class are cloneable with this method.

Usage

Request$clone(deep = FALSE)

Arguments

deep

Whether to make a deep clone.

See Also

Response for handling http responses

Examples

fake_rook <- fiery::fake_request(
  'http://example.com/test?id=34632&question=who+is+hadley',
  content = 'This is an elaborate ruse',
  headers = list(
    Accept = 'application/json; text/*',
    Content_Type = 'text/plain'
  )
)

req <- Request$new(fake_rook)

# Get full URL
req$url

# Get list of query parameters
req$query

# Test if content is text
req$is('txt')

# Perform content negotiation for the response
req$accepts(c('html', 'json', 'txt'))

# Cleaning up connections
rm(fake_rook, req)
gc()

reqres documentation built on Aug. 21, 2025, 5:43 p.m.