HTTPParse

Syntax

HTTPParse (message,headerlist,method,httpver[,uri,cgilist]) Returns status

Description

Note: The flag is set according to whether Omnis was able to make a call to this external command.

This Web command is multi-threaded, allowing another thread to execute in the multi-threaded server while it runs. Note that the same socket cannot safely be used concurrently by more than one thread.

HTTPParse is a server command to parse HTTP header information from an incoming request message.

Message is an Omnis Character or Binary field containing the full text of an HTTP request message.

HeaderList is an Omnis list with two character columns. The list receives the headers extracted from the request message, one line per header.

For example, after the call, the list might contain entries such as:

Note: HTTPParse automatically strips the colons after the attribute names.

Method is an Omnis character field that receives the type of HTTP method being requested, for example, GET, POST, or HEAD.

HTTPVersion is an Omnis Character field containing the version of HTTP. For example, 1.0.

URI is an Omnis Character field that receives the name of the URI to be processed. At a minimum, the URI is a single slash, so every URI returned from HTTPParse is of the form /URLName.

Note: Due to the presence of the leading slash, a simple Omnis equality string comparison to the name of the URI fails. Use the pos() function or similar parsing mechanism to find the URI name. The trailing question mark of a GET-method CGI, which separates the URI path from the CGI arguments, is stripped by HTTPParse.

CGIList is an Omnis list field with two character columns. It receives the CGI arguments present in the request, either extracted from the URL, or extracted from content of type "application/x-www-form-urlencoded". For example, if the following HTML form is the submitted from a browser:

Name:

City:

Are you alive?

and the user types in John Smith, Podunk and checks the City field, after HTTPParse, CGIList contains:

Note: Before the data is stored in the list, HTTPParse automatically decodes any CGI encoding required to pass special characters. There is no need to call the CGIDecode command.

Possible error codes are listed in the Web Command Error Codes Appendix.

Example

# When a new connection is received call the method $newconnection
# to read and parse the message sent by HTTPPost 
HTTPServer ('$newconnection',6001) Returns lStatus
# method $newconnection 
HTTPRead (iSocket,lBuffer) Returns lCharCount
Do  lHeaderList.$define(lHeaderName,lHeaderValue)
Do  lCGIList.$define(lAttribute,lValue)
HTTPParse (lBuffer,lHeaderList,lMethod,lHttpVersion,lUri,lCGIList) Returns lStatus