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Response Elements

For the purposes of this document, we will refer to result as the result namespace returned by Run when RequestOnly=0. result contains information about the request and the response, if any, from the host. Some settings from the request are copied into result.

HttpStatus

The integer HTTP response status code returned by the host. Status codes are split into specific ranges:

  • 1xx: Informational - Request received, continuing process
  • 2xx: Success - The action was successfully received, understood, and accepted
  • 3xx: Redirection - Further action must be taken in order to complete the request
  • 4xx: Client Error - The request contains bad syntax or cannot be fulfilled
  • 5xx: Server Error - The server failed to fulfill an apparently valid request

HttpMessage

A character vector indicating the HTTP message coresponding to the HTTP status code.

HttpVersion

A character vector indicating the HTTP version used by the host.

Data

In most cases Data will be the response's character vector payload. Data is not populated if the OutFile setting is set - the payload is instead written, as received, to file.

The Content-Type response header will indicate the type of data in the payload and the Content-Encoding header, if present, will indicate the compression scheme used if the payload is compressed.

If the response payload is compressed using 'deflate' or 'gzip' encoding HttpCommand will uncompress the payload.

If the Content-Type header indicates that the UTF-8 character set is used, HttpCommand will convert the payload to UTF-8.

HttpCommand can translate certain content types into a format that may be more useful in the APL environment. If the TranslateData is set to 1, HttpCommand will attempt to translate application/json content using ⎕JSON, and text/xml and application/xml using ⎕XML.

Headers

Headers is the 2-column matrix of response header name/value pairs.

Note: There are two sets of headers in an HTTP request/response transaction - the request headers that are sent to the host, and the response headers that are sent back from the host.

∇GetHeader

GetHeader is a utility function included in the result namespace that makes it easier to extract response header values. GetHeader accommodates the case-insensitive nature of header names. If the header does not exist, GetHeader returns ''.

Syntax value ← {headers} result.GetHeader name
name A character vector header name, or vector of header names
headers The optional header array to extract from. By default, GetHeader will use the response's Headers array. You may also pass the Headers element of a redirection (see Redirections).
value The header value(s) corresponding to the header names specified in name, or the empty vector '' for header name(s) that don't exist.
Example(s) result.GetHeader 'content-type'
text/html; charset=utf-8

⍝ Note: there is no 'fred' header
result.GetHeader 'content-type' 'fred' 'server'
┌────────────────────────┬┬──────────────────────┐
│text/html; charset=utf-8││Apache/2.4.18 (Ubuntu)│
└────────────────────────┴┴──────────────────────┘

Cookies

Cookies is a vector of namespaces, one per cookie set by the host. Cookies are frequently used to maintain a state between the client (HttpCommand) and the host. When using an instance of HttpCommand, the instance will retain a copy of Cookies and apply appropriate cookies to subsequent requests.

The sample below shows the names and first 50 characters of the values of 3 cookies returned by GitHub.com. The first cookie holds the session ID.

      'Name' 'Value'⍪↑(HttpCommand.Get'github.com').Cookies.(Name((50∘⌊∘≢↑⊢)Value))
 Name       Value                                              
 _gh_sess   A0ZezbnUgtkiq1lBubH7mrXclGhvhcCFKRUbAb045wGNT2Hlma 
 _octo      GH1.1.809596667.1660313286                         
 logged_in  no                                                 

PeerCert

If the connection to the host uses HTTPS as its protocol which means it is a secure connection, then PeerCert contains the X509 certificate of the host.

      ⊃(HttpCommand.Get 'dyalog.com').PeerCert.Formatted.(Issuer Subject)
┌──────────────────────────┬───────────────┐
│C=US,O=Let's Encrypt,CN=R3│CN=*.dyalog.com│
└──────────────────────────┴───────────────┘

Redirections

Redirections is a vector of namespaces, one per HTTP redirect response from the host. An HTTP redirect is a special kind of response from the host that directs the client to another location for the resource that's being requested. When a web browser like Google Chrome or Mozilla Firefox receives a redirect response, they automatically reissue the request for the resource at the new location. The new location is specified in the response's Location header. A redirection can itself be redirected and can even result in an infinite redirection loop. HttpCommand will also follow the redirections, but it also retains information about each redirection in Redirections. The MaxRedirections setting can limit the number of redirections that HttpCommand will follow.

Each namespace in Redirections has the following elements:

HttpStatusThe HTTP status for the request.
HttpMessageThe corresponding HTTP status message for the request.
HttpVersionThe HTTP version that was used in sending the response.
HeadersThe headers that were sent by the host. There should be a 'Location' header that indicates the redirection location for the requested resource
URLThe URL that was used and produced this redirection.

The example below uses httpbin.org/relative_redirect/2 to redirect the request twice.

      ⊢result ← HttpCommand.Get 'http://httpbin.org/relative_redirect/2'
[rc: 0 | msg:  | HTTP Status: 200 "OK" | ⍴Data: 266]

Examining the information in the 2 redirections shows that our original URL, 'httpbin.org/relative-redirect/2', was redirected to /relative-redirect/1 which was subsequently redirected to /get.

      'URL' 'Was redirected to'⍪result.(Redirections.URL,⍪Redirections.Headers GetHeader¨⊂'location')
┌───────────────────────────────┬────────────────────┐
│URL                            │Was redirected to   │
├───────────────────────────────┼────────────────────┤
│httpbin.org/relative-redirect/2│/relative-redirect/1│
├───────────────────────────────┼────────────────────┤
│httpbin.org/relative-redirect/1│/get                │
└───────────────────────────────┴────────────────────┘