NAME¶
Catalyst::TraitFor::Request::REST::ForBrowsers - A request trait for REST and
browsers
SYNOPSIS¶
package MyApp;
use Moose;
use namespace::autoclean;
use Catalyst;
use CatalystX::RoleApplicator;
extends 'Catalyst';
__PACKAGE__->apply_request_class_roles(qw[
Catalyst::TraitFor::Request::REST::ForBrowsers
]);
DESCRIPTION¶
Writing REST-y apps is a good thing, but if you're also trying to support web
browsers, you're probably going to need some hackish workarounds. This module
provides those workarounds for you.
Specifically, it lets you do two things. First, it lets you "tunnel"
PUT and DELETE requests across a POST, since most browsers do not support PUT
or DELETE actions (as of early 2009, at least).
Second, it provides a heuristic to check if the client is a web browser,
regardless of what content types it claims to accept. The reason for this is
that while a browser might claim to accept the "application/xml"
content type, it's really not going to do anything useful with it, and you're
best off giving it HTML.
METHODS¶
This class provides the following methods:
$request->method¶
This method works just like "Catalyst::Request->method()" except it
allows for tunneling of PUT and DELETE requests via a POST.
Specifically, you can provide a form element named "x-tunneled-method"
which can override the request method for a POST. This
only works for a
POST, not a GET.
You can also use a header named "x-http-method-override" instead
(Google uses this header for its APIs).
$request->looks_like_browser¶
This attribute provides a heuristic to determine whether or not the request
appears to come from a browser. You can use this however you want. I
usually use it to determine whether or not to give the client a full HTML page
or some sort of serialized data.
This is a heuristic, and like any heuristic, it is probably wrong sometimes.
Here is how it works:
- •
- If the request includes a header "X-Request-With" set to either
"HTTP.Request" or "XMLHttpRequest", this returns
false. The assumption is that if you're doing XHR, you don't want the
request treated as if it comes from a browser.
- •
- If the client makes a GET request with a query string parameter
"content-type", and that type is not an HTML type, it is
not a browser.
- •
- If the client provides an Accept header which includes "*/*" as
an accepted content type, the client is a browser. Specifically, it is
IE7, which submits an Accept header of "*/*". IE7's Accept
header does not include any html types like "text/html".
- •
- If the client provides an Accept header and accepts either
"text/html" or "application/xhtml+xml" it is a
browser.
- •
- If it provides an Accept header of any sort that doesn't match one of the
above criteria, it is not a browser.
- •
- The default is that the client is a browser.
This all works well for my apps, but read it carefully to make sure it meets
your expectations before using it.
AUTHOR¶
Dave Rolsky, "<autarch@urth.org>"
BUGS¶
Please report any bugs or feature requests to
"bug-catalyst-action-rest@rt.cpan.org", or through the web interface
at <
http://rt.cpan.org>. We will be notified, and then you'll
automatically be notified of progress on your bug as I make changes.
COPYRIGHT & LICENSE¶
Copyright 2008-2010 Dave Rolsky, All Rights Reserved.
This program is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under
the same terms as Perl itself.