ibrowse

ibrowse is a HTTP client written in erlang.

License: ibrowse is available under two different licenses. LGPL or the BSD license.

Comments to: chandrashekhar.mullaparthi@gmail.com

Current Version: 4.1.0

Latest Version: git://github.com/cmullaparthi/ibrowse.git

Features

RFC2616 compliant (AFAIK)
supports GET, POST, OPTIONS, HEAD, PUT, DELETE, TRACE, MKCOL, PROPFIND, PROPPATCH, LOCK, UNLOCK, MOVE and COPY
Understands HTTP/0.9, HTTP/1.0 and HTTP/1.1
Understands chunked encoding
Can generate requests using Chunked Transfer-Encoding
Pools of connections to each webserver
Pipelining support
Download to file
Asynchronous requests. Responses are streamed to a process
Basic authentication
Supports proxy authentication
Supports socks5
Can talk to secure webservers using SSL
Any other features in the code not listed here :)

Usage Examples

Remember to start ibrowse first:

5> ibrowse:start().
{ok,<0.94.0>}

Synchronous Requests

A simple GET request:

6> ibrowse:send_req("http://intranet/messenger/", [], get).
{ok,"200",
    [{"Server","Microsoft-IIS/5.0"},
     {"Content-Location","http://intranet/messenger/index.html"},
     {"Date","Fri, 17 Dec 2004 15:16:19 GMT"},
     {"Content-Type","text/html"},
     {"Accept-Ranges","bytes"},
     {"Last-Modified","Fri, 17 Dec 2004 08:38:21 GMT"},
     {"Etag","\"aa7c9dc313e4c41:d77\""},
     {"Content-Length","953"}],
    "<html>...</html>"}

A GET using a proxy:

7> ibrowse:send_req("http://www.google.com/", [], get, [],
                 [{proxy_user, "XXXXX"},
                  {proxy_password, "XXXXX"},
                  {proxy_host, "proxy"},
                  {proxy_port, 8080}], 1000).
{ok,"302",
    [{"Date","Fri, 17 Dec 2004 15:22:56 GMT"},
     {"Content-Length","217"},
     {"Content-Type","text/html"},
     {"Set-Cookie",
      "PREF=ID=f58155c797f9..."},
     {"Server","GWS/2.1"},
     {"Location",
      "http://www.google.co.uk/cxfer?c=PREF%3D:TM%3D110329..."},
     {"Via","1.1 netapp01 (NetCache NetApp/5.5R2)"}],
    "<HTML>...</HTML>\r\n"}

A GET response saved to file. A temporary file is created and the filename returned. The response will only be saved to file if the status code is in the 200 range. The directory to download to can be set using the application env var download_dir - the default is the current working directory:

8> ibrowse:send_req("http://www.erlang.se/", [], get, [],
                 [{proxy_user, "XXXXX"},
                  {proxy_password, "XXXXX"},
                  {proxy_host, "proxy"},
                  {proxy_port, 8080},
                  {save_response_to_file, true}], 1000).
{error,req_timedout}

9> ibrowse:send_req("http://www.erlang.se/", [], get, [],
                 [{proxy_user, "XXXXX"},
                  {proxy_password, "XXXXX"},
                  {proxy_host, "proxy"},
                  {proxy_port, 8080},
                  {save_response_to_file, true}], 5000).
{ok,"200",
    [{"Transfer-Encoding","chunked"},
     {"Date","Fri, 17 Dec 2004 15:24:36 GMT"},
     {"Content-Type","text/html"},
     {"Server","Apache/1.3.9 (Unix)"},
     {"Via","1.1 netapp01 (NetCache NetApp/5.5R2)"}],
    {file,"/Users/chandru/code/ibrowse/src/ibrowse_tmp_file_1103297041125854"}}

Setting the size of the connection pool and pipeline. This sets the number of maximum connections to the specified server to 10 and the pipeline size to 1. Connections are assumed to be already setup.

11> ibrowse:set_dest("www.hotmail.com", 80, [{max_sessions, 10},
                                             {max_pipeline_size, 1}]).
ok

Example using the HEAD method:

56> ibrowse:send_req("http://www.erlang.org", [], head).
{ok,"200",
    [{"Date","Mon, 28 Feb 2005 04:40:53 GMT"},
     {"Server","Apache/1.3.9 (Unix)"},
     {"Last-Modified","Thu, 10 Feb 2005 09:31:23 GMT"},
     {"Etag","\"8d71d-1efa-420b29eb\""},
     {"Accept-ranges","bytes"},
     {"Content-Length","7930"},
     {"Content-Type","text/html"}],
    []}

Example using the OPTIONS method:

62> ibrowse:send_req("http://www.sun.com", [], options).
{ok,"200",
    [{"Server","Sun Java System Web Server 6.1"},
     {"Date","Mon, 28 Feb 2005 04:44:39 GMT"},
     {"Content-Length","0"},
     {"P3p",
      "policyref=\"http://www.sun.com/p3p/Sun_P3P_Policy.xml\", CP=\"CAO DSP COR CUR ADMa DEVa TAIa PSAa PSDa CONi TELi OUR  SAMi PUBi IND PHY ONL PUR COM NAV INT DEM CNT STA POL PRE GOV\""},
     {"Set-Cookie",
      "SUN_ID=X.X.X.X:169191109565879; EXPIRES=Wednesday, 31-Dec-2025 23:59:59 GMT; DOMAIN=.sun.com; PATH=/"},
     {"Allow",
      "HEAD, GET, PUT, POST, DELETE, TRACE, OPTIONS, MOVE, INDEX, MKDIR, RMDIR"}],
    []}

Asynchronous Requests

Example of an asynchronous GET request:

18> ibrowse:send_req("http://www.google.com", [], get, [],
                     [{proxy_user, "XXXXX"},
                      {proxy_password, "XXXXX"},
                      {proxy_host, "proxy"},
                      {proxy_port, 8080},
                      {stream_to, self()}]).
{ibrowse_req_id,{1115,327256,389608}}

19> flush().
Shell got {ibrowse_async_headers,{1115,327256,389608},
           "302",
           [{"Date","Thu, 05 May 2005 21:06:41 GMT"},
            {"Content-Length","217"},
            {"Content-Type","text/html"},
            {"Set-Cookie",
             "PREF=ID=b601f16bfa32f071:CR=1:TM=1115327201:LM=1115327201:S=OX5hSB525AMjUUu7; expires=Sun, 17-Jan-2038 19:14:07 GMT; path=/; domain=.google.com"},
            {"Server","GWS/2.1"},
            {"Location",
             "http://www.google.co.uk/cxfer?c=PREF%3D:TM%3D1115327201:S%3DDS9pDJ4IHcAuZ_AS&prev=/"},
            {"Via",
             "1.1 hatproxy01 (NetCache NetApp/5.6.2)"}]}
Shell got {ibrowse_async_response,{1115,327256,389608},
           "<HTML>...</HTML>\r\n"}
Shell got {ibrowse_async_response_end,{1115,327256,389608}}
ok

Another asynchronous GET request:

24> ibrowse:send_req("http://yaws.hyber.org/simple_ex2.yaws", [], get, [],
                     [{proxy_user, "XXXXX"},
                      {proxy_password, "XXXXX"},
                      {proxy_host, "proxy"},
                      {proxy_port, 8080},
                      {stream_to, self()}]).
{ibrowse_req_id,{1115,327430,512314}}

25> flush().
Shell got {ibrowse_async_headers,{1115,327430,512314},
           "200",
           [{"Date","Thu, 05 May 2005 20:58:08 GMT"},
            {"Content-Length","64"},
            {"Content-Type","text/html;charset="},
            {"Server",
             "Yaws/1.54 Yet Another Web Server"},
            {"Via",
             "1.1 hatproxy01 (NetCache NetApp/5.6.2)"}]}
Shell got {ibrowse_async_response,{1115,327430,512314},
           "<html>...</html>\n"}
Shell got {ibrowse_async_response_end,{1115,327430,512314}}

Example of request which fails when using the async option. Here the {ibrowse_req_id, ReqId} is not returned. Instead the error code is returned.

68> ibrowse:send_req("http://www.earlyriser.org", [], get, [], [{stream_to, self()}]).
{error,conn_failed}

Other Examples

Example of request using both Proxy-Authorization and authorization by the final webserver:

17> ibrowse:send_req("http://www.erlang.se/lic_area/protected/patches/erl_756_otp_beam.README",
                     [], get, [],
                     [{proxy_user, "XXXXX"},
                      {proxy_password, "XXXXX"},
                      {proxy_host, "proxy"},
                      {proxy_port, 8080},
                      {basic_auth, {"XXXXX", "XXXXXX"}}]).
{ok,"200",
    [{"Accept-Ranges","bytes"},
     {"Date","Thu, 05 May 2005 21:02:09 GMT"},
     {"Content-Length","2088"},
     {"Content-Type","text/plain"},
     {"Server","Apache/1.3.9 (Unix)"},
     {"Last-Modified","Tue, 03 May 2005 15:08:18 GMT"},
     {"ETag","\"1384c8-828-427793e2\""},
     {"Via","1.1 hatproxy01 (NetCache NetApp/5.6.2)"}],
    "Patch Id:\t\terl_756_otp_beam\n..."}

Example of a TRACE request. Very interesting! yaws.hyber.org didn't support this. Nor did www.google.com. But good old BBC supports this:

35> 37> ibrowse:send_req("http://www.bbc.co.uk/", [], trace, [],
                         [{proxy_user, "XXXXX"},
                          {proxy_password, "XXXXX"},
                          {proxy_host, "proxy"},
                          {proxy_port, 8080}]).
{ok,"200",
    [{"Transfer-Encoding","chunked"},
     {"Date","Thu, 05 May 2005 21:40:27 GMT"},
     {"Content-Type","message/http"},
     {"Server","Apache/2.0.51 (Unix)"},
     {"Set-Cookie",
      "BBC-UID=7452e72a..."},
     {"Set-Cookie",
      "BBC-UID=7452e72a..."},
     {"Via","1.1 hatproxy01 (NetCache NetApp/5.6.2)"}],
    "TRACE / HTTP/1.1\r\nHost: www.bbc.co.uk\r\nConnection: keep-alive\r\nX-Forwarded-For: 172.24.28.29\r\nVia: 1.1 hatproxy01 (NetCache NetApp/5.6.2)\r\nCookie: BBC-UID=7452e...\r\n\r\n"}

A GET using a socks5: