org.simpleframework.http
Interface Request

All Superinterfaces:

RequestHeader, RequestLine

All Known Implementing Classes:

RequestWrapper

public interface Request
extends RequestHeader

The Request is used to provide an interface to the HTTP entity body and message header. This provides methods that allow the entity body to be acquired as a stream, string, or if the message is a multipart encoded body, then the individual parts of the request body can be acquired.

This can also maintain data during the request lifecycle as well as the session lifecycle. A Session is made available for convenience. It provides a means for the services to associate data with a given client session, which can be retrieved when there are subsequent requests sent to the server.

It is important to note that the entity body can be read multiple times from the request. Calling getInputStream will start reading from the first byte in the body regardless of the number of times it is called. This allows POST parameters as well as multipart bodies to be read from the stream if desired.

Author:

Niall Gallagher

Method Summary

Object	getAttribute(Object key) This is used as a shortcut for acquiring attributes for the response.
Map	getAttributes() This can be used to retrieve the response attributes.
ReadableByteChannel	getByteChannel() This is used to read the content body.
Channel	getChannel() This provides the underlying channel for the request.
InetSocketAddress	getClientAddress() This is used to acquire the remote client address.
Certificate	getClientCertificate() This is used to acquire the SSL certificate used when the server is using a HTTPS connection.
String	getContent() This is used to get the content body.
InputStream	getInputStream() This is used to read the content body.
String	getParameter(String name) This is used to provide quick access to the parameters.
Part	getPart(String name) This method is used to acquire a Part from the HTTP request using a known name for the part.
List<Part>	getParts() This method is used to get all Part objects that are associated with the request.
long	getRequestTime() This is the time in milliseconds when the request was first read from the underlying socket.
boolean	isKeepAlive() This is a convenience method that is used to determine whether or not this message has the Connection: close header.
boolean	isSecure() This is used to determine if the request has been transferred over a secure connection.

Methods inherited from interface org.simpleframework.http.RequestHeader

getContentLength, getContentType, getCookie, getCookies, getDate, getHeader, getInteger, getLocales, getNames, getValue, getValue, getValues, toString

Methods inherited from interface org.simpleframework.http.RequestLine

getAddress, getMajor, getMethod, getMinor, getPath, getQuery, getTarget

Method Detail

isSecure

boolean isSecure()

This is used to determine if the request has been transferred over a secure connection. If the protocol is HTTPS and the content is delivered over SSL then the request is considered to be secure. Also the associated response will be secure.

Returns:

true if the request is transferred securely

isKeepAlive

boolean isKeepAlive()

This is a convenience method that is used to determine whether or not this message has the Connection: close header. If the close token is present then this stream is not a keep-alive connection. If this has no Connection header then the keep-alive status is determined by the HTTP version, that is, HTTP/1.1 is keep-alive by default, HTTP/1.0 is not keep-alive by default.

Returns:

returns true if this has a keep-alive stream

getRequestTime

long getRequestTime()

This is the time in milliseconds when the request was first read from the underlying socket. The time represented here represents the time collection of this request began. This does not necessarily represent the time the bytes arrived as as some data may have been buffered before it was parsed.

Returns:

this represents the time the request arrived at

getChannel

Channel getChannel()

This provides the underlying channel for the request. It contains the TCP socket channel and various other low level components. Typically this will only ever be needed when there is a need to switch protocols.

Returns:

the underlying channel for this request

getClientCertificate

Certificate getClientCertificate()

This is used to acquire the SSL certificate used when the server is using a HTTPS connection. For plain text connections or connections that use a security mechanism other than SSL this will be null. This is only available when the connection makes specific use of an SSL engine to secure the connection.

Returns:

this returns the associated SSL certificate if any

getClientAddress

InetSocketAddress getClientAddress()

This is used to acquire the remote client address. This can be used to acquire both the port and the I.P address for the client. It allows the connected clients to be logged and if require it can be used to perform course grained security.

Returns:

this returns the client address for this request

getAttributes

Map getAttributes()

This can be used to retrieve the response attributes. These can be used to keep state with the response when it is passed to other systems for processing. Attributes act as a convenient model for storing objects associated with the response. This also inherits attributes associated with the client connection.

Returns:

the attributes of that have been set on the request

getAttribute

Object getAttribute(Object key)

This is used as a shortcut for acquiring attributes for the response. This avoids acquiring the attribute Map in order to retrieve the attribute directly from that object. The attributes contain data specific to the response.

Parameters:

key - this is the key of the attribute to acquire

Returns:

this returns the attribute for the specified name

getParameter

String getParameter(String name)

This is used to provide quick access to the parameters. This avoids having to acquire the request Form object. This basically acquires the parameters object and invokes the getParameters method with the given name.

Parameters:

name - this is the name of the parameter value

getPart

Part getPart(String name)

This method is used to acquire a Part from the HTTP request using a known name for the part. This is typically used when there is a file upload with a multipart POST request. All parts that are not files can be acquired as string values from the attachment object.

Parameters:

name - this is the name of the part object to acquire

Returns:

the named part or null if the part does not exist

getParts

List<Part> getParts()

This method is used to get all Part objects that are associated with the request. Each attachment contains the body and headers associated with it. If the request is not a multipart POST request then this will return an empty list.

Returns:

the list of parts associated with this request

getContent

String getContent()
                  throws IOException

This is used to get the content body. This will essentially get the content from the body and present it as a single string. The encoding of the string is determined from the content type charset value. If the charset is not supported this will throw an exception. Typically only text values should be extracted using this method if there is a need to parse that content.

Returns:

this returns the message bytes as an encoded string

Throws:

IOException

getInputStream

InputStream getInputStream()
                           throws IOException

This is used to read the content body. The specifics of the data that is read from this InputStream can be determined by the getContentLength method. If the data sent by the client is chunked then it is decoded, see RFC 2616 section 3.6. Also multipart data is available as Part objects however the raw content of the multipart body is still available.

Returns:

this returns an input stream containing the message body

Throws:

IOException

getByteChannel

ReadableByteChannel getByteChannel()
                                   throws IOException

This is used to read the content body. The specifics of the data that is read from this ReadableByteChannel can be determined by the getContentLength method. If the data sent by the client is chunked then it is decoded, see RFC 2616 section 3.6. This stream will never provide empty reads as the content is internally buffered, so this can do a full read.

Returns:

this returns the byte channel used to read the content

Throws:

IOException