A HTTP message consists of a head and an optional body. The message head of an HTTP request consists of a request line and a collection of header fields. The message head of an HTTP response consists of a status line and a collection of header fields. All HTTP messages must include the protocol version. Some HTTP messages can optionally enclose a content body. HttpCore defines the HTTP message object model that closely follows the definition and provides an extensive support for serialization (formatting) and deserialization (parsing) of HTTP message elements.

HTTP request is a message sent from the client to the server. The first line of that message includes the method to be applied to the resource, the identifier of the resource, and the protocol version in use. stdout >

HTTP response is a message sent by the server back to the client after having received and interpreted a request message. The first line of that message consists of the protocol version followed by a numeric status code and its associated textual phrase. stdout >

An HTTP message can contain a number of headers describing properties of the message such as the content length, content type and so on. HttpCore provides methods to retrieve, add, remove and enumerate headers. stdout > There is an efficient way to obtain all headers of a given type using the HeaderIterator interface. stdout > It also provides convenience methods to parse HTTP messages into individual header elements. stdout > HTTP headers get tokenized into individual header elements only on demand. HTTP headers received over an HTTP connection are stored internally as an array of chars and parsed lazily only when their properties are accessed.

HTTP messages can carry a content entity associated with the request or response. Entities can be found in some requests and in some responses, as they are optional. Requests that use entities are referred to as entity enclosing requests. The HTTP specification defines two entity enclosing methods: POST and PUT. Responses are usually expected to enclose a content entity. There are exceptions to this rule such as responses to HEAD method and 204 No Content, 304 Not Modified, 205 Reset Content responses. HttpCore distinguishes three kinds of entities, depending on where their content originates: The content is received from a stream, or generated on the fly. In particular, this category includes entities being received from a connection. Streamed entities are generally not repeatable. The content is in memory or obtained by means that are independent from a connection or other entity. Self-contained entities are generally repeatable. The content is obtained from another entity. This distinction is important for connection management with incoming entities. For entities that are created by an application and only sent using the HttpCore framework, the difference between streamed and self-contained is of little importance. In that case, it is suggested to consider non-repeatable entities as streamed, and those that are repeatable as self-contained.

An entity can be repeatable, meaning its content can be read more than once. This is only possible with self contained entities (like ByteArrayEntity or StringEntity).

Since an entity can represent both binary and character content, it has support for character encodings (to support the latter, ie. character content). The entity is created when executing a request with enclosed content or when the request was successful and the response body is used to send the result back to the client. To read the content from the entity, one can either retrieve the input stream via the HttpEntity#getContent() method, which returns an java.io.InputStream, or one can supply an output stream to the HttpEntity#writeTo(OutputStream) method, which will return once all content has been written to the given stream. The EntityUtils class exposes several static methods to more easily read the content or information from an entity. Instead of reading the java.io.InputStream directly, one can retrieve the whole content body in a string / byte array by using the methods from this class. When the entity has been received with an incoming message, the methods HttpEntity#getContentType() and HttpEntity#getContentLength() methods can be used for reading the common metadata such as Content-Type and Content-Length headers (if they are available). Since the Content-Type header can contain a character encoding for text mime-types like text/plain or text/html, the HttpEntity#getContentEncoding() method is used to read this information. If the headers aren't available, a length of -1 will be returned, and NULL for the content type. If the Content-Type header is available, a Header object will be returned. When creating an entity for a outgoing message, this meta data has to be supplied by the creator of the entity. stdout >

In order to ensure proper release of system resources one must close the content stream associated with the entity. Please note that HttpEntity#writeTo(OutputStream) method is also required to ensure proper release of system resources once the entity has been fully written out. If this method obtains an instance of java.io.InputStream by calling HttpEntity#getContent(), it is also expected to close the stream in a finally clause. When working with streaming entities, one can use the EntityUtils#consume(HttpEntity) method to ensure that the entity content has been fully consumed and the underlying stream has been closed.

There are a few ways to create entities. The following implementations are provided by HttpCore: BasicHttpEntity ByteArrayEntity StringEntity InputStreamEntity FileEntity EntityTemplate HttpEntityWrapper BufferedHttpEntity

This is exactly as the name implies, a basic entity that represents an underlying stream. This is generally used for the entities received from HTTP messages. This entity has an empty constructor. After construction it represents no content, and has a negative content length. One needs to set the content stream, and optionally the length. This can be done with the BasicHttpEntity#setContent(InputStream) and BasicHttpEntity#setContentLength(long) methods respectively.

ByteArrayEntity is a self contained, repeatable entity that obtains its content from a given byte array. This byte array is supplied to the constructor.

StringEntity is a self contained, repeatable entity that obtains its content from a java.lang.String object. It has three constructors, one simply constructs with a given java.lang.String object; the second also takes a character encoding for the data in the string; the third allows the mime type to be specified. env = System.getenv(); for (Entry envEntry : env.entrySet()) { sb.append(envEntry.getKey()).append(": ") .append(envEntry.getValue()).append("\n"); } // construct without a character encoding (defaults to ISO-8859-1) HttpEntity myEntity1 = new StringEntity(sb.toString()); // alternatively construct with an encoding (mime type defaults to "text/plain") HttpEntity myEntity2 = new StringEntity(sb.toString(), "UTF-8"); // alternatively construct with an encoding and a mime type HttpEntity myEntity3 = new StringEntity(sb.toString(), "text/html", "UTF-8"); ]]>

InputStreamEntity is a streamed, non-repeatable entity that obtains its content from an input stream. It is constructed by supplying the input stream and the content length. The content length is used to limit the amount of data read from the java.io.InputStream. If the length matches the content length available on the input stream, then all data will be sent. Alternatively a negative content length will read all data from the input stream, which is the same as supplying the exact content length, so the length is most often used to limit the length.

FileEntity is a self contained, repeatable entity that obtains its content from a file. Since this is mostly used to stream large files of different types, one needs to supply the content type of the file, for instance, sending a zip file would require the content type application/zip, for XML application/xml.

This is an entity which receives its content from a ContentProducer interface. Content producers are objects which produce their content on demand, by writing it out to an output stream. They are expected to be able produce their content every time they are requested to do so. So creating a EntityTemplate, one is expected to supply a reference to a content producer, which effectively creates a repeatable entity. There are no standard content producers in HttpCore. It is basically just a convenience interface to allow wrapping up complex logic into an entity. To use this entity one needs to create a class that implements ContentProducer and override the ContentProducer#writeTo(OutputStream) method. Then, an instance of custom ContentProducer will be used to write the full content body to the output stream. For instance, an HTTP server would serve static files with the FileEntity, but running CGI programs could be done with a ContentProducer, inside which one could implement custom logic to supply the content as it becomes available. This way one does not need to buffer it in a string and then use a StringEntity or ByteArrayEntity. stdout >

This is the base class for creating wrapped entities. The wrapping entity holds a reference to a wrapped entity and delegates all calls to it. Implementations of wrapping entities can derive from this class and need to override only those methods that should not be delegated to the wrapped entity.

BufferedHttpEntity is a subclass of HttpEntityWrapper. It is constructed by supplying another entity. It reads the content from the supplied entity, and buffers it in memory. This makes it possible to make a repeatable entity, from a non-repeatable entity. If the supplied entity is already repeatable, calls are simply passed through to the underlying entity.

HTTP connections are responsible for HTTP message serialization and deserialization. One should rarely need to use HTTP connection objects directly. There are higher level protocol components intended for execution and processing of HTTP requests. However, in some cases direct interaction with HTTP connections may be necessary, for instance, to access properties such as the connection status, the socket timeout or the local and remote addresses. It is important to bear in mind that HTTP connections are not thread-safe. It is strongly recommended to limit all interactions with HTTP connection objects to one thread. The only method of HttpConnection interface and its sub-interfaces which is safe to invoke from another thread is HttpConnection#shutdown() .

HttpCore does not provide full support for opening connections because the process of establishing a new connection - especially on the client side - can be very complex when it involves one or more authenticating or/and tunneling proxies. Instead, blocking HTTP connections can be bound to any arbitrary network socket. HTTP connection interfaces, both client and server, send and receive messages in two stages. The message head is transmitted first. Depending on properties of the message head it may be followed by a message body. Please note it is very important to always close the underlying content stream in order to signal that the processing of the message is complete. HTTP entities that stream out their content directly from the input stream of the underlying connection must ensure the content of the message body is fully consumed for that connection to be potentially re-usable. Over-simplified process of client side request execution may look like this: Over-simplified process of server side request handling may look like this: Please note that one should rarely need to transmit messages using these low level methods and should use appropriate higher level HTTP service implementations instead.

HTTP connections manage the process of the content transfer using the HttpEntity interface. HTTP connections generate an entity object that encapsulates the content stream of the incoming message. Please note that HttpServerConnection#receiveRequestEntity() and HttpClientConnection#receiveResponseEntity() do not retrieve or buffer any incoming data. They merely inject an appropriate content codec based on the properties of the incoming message. The content can be retrieved by reading from the content input stream of the enclosed entity using HttpEntity#getContent(). The incoming data will be decoded automatically completely transparently for the data consumer. Likewise, HTTP connections rely on HttpEntity#writeTo(OutputStream) method to generate the content of an outgoing message. If an outgoing messages encloses an entity, the content will be encoded automatically based on the properties of the message.

Default implementations of HTTP connections support three content transfer mechanisms defined by the HTTP/1.1 specification: The end of the content entity is determined by the value of the Content-Length header. Maximum entity length: Long#MAX_VALUE. The end of the content entity is demarcated by closing the underlying connection (end of stream condition). For obvious reasons the identity encoding can only be used on the server side. Max entity length: unlimited. The content is sent in small chunks. Max entity length: unlimited. The appropriate content stream class will be created automatically depending on properties of the entity enclosed with the message.

HTTP connections can be terminated either gracefully by calling HttpConnection#close() or forcibly by calling HttpConnection#shutdown(). The former tries to flush all buffered data prior to terminating the connection and may block indefinitely. The HttpConnection#close() method is not thread-safe. The latter terminates the connection without flushing internal buffers and returns control to the caller as soon as possible without blocking for long. The HttpConnection#shutdown() method is thread-safe.

All HttpCore components potentially throw two types of exceptions: IOException in case of an I/O failure such as socket timeout or an socket reset and HttpException that signals an HTTP failure such as a violation of the HTTP protocol. Usually I/O errors are considered non-fatal and recoverable, whereas HTTP protocol errors are considered fatal and cannot be automatically recovered from.

ProtocolException signals a fatal HTTP protocol violation that usually results in an immediate termination of the HTTP message processing.

HTTP protocol interceptor is a routine that implements a specific aspect of the HTTP protocol. Usually protocol interceptors are expected to act upon one specific header or a group of related headers of the incoming message or populate the outgoing message with one specific header or a group of related headers. Protocol interceptors can also manipulate content entities enclosed with messages, transparent content compression / decompression being a good example. Usually this is accomplished by using the 'Decorator' pattern where a wrapper entity class is used to decorate the original entity. Several protocol interceptors can be combined to form one logical unit. HTTP protocol processor is a collection of protocol interceptors that implements the 'Chain of Responsibility' pattern, where each individual protocol interceptor is expected to work on the particular aspect of the HTTP protocol it is responsible for. Usually the order in which interceptors are executed should not matter as long as they do not depend on a particular state of the execution context. If protocol interceptors have interdependencies and therefore must be executed in a particular order, they should be added to the protocol processor in the same sequence as their expected execution order. Protocol interceptors must be implemented as thread-safe. Similarly to servlets, protocol interceptors should not use instance variables unless access to those variables is synchronized.

HttpCore comes with a number of most essential protocol interceptors for client and server HTTP processing.

RequestContent is the most important interceptor for outgoing requests. It is responsible for delimiting content length by adding Content-Length or Transfer-Content headers based on the properties of the enclosed entity and the protocol version. This interceptor is required for correct functioning of client side protocol processors.

ResponseContent is the most important interceptor for outgoing responses. It is responsible for delimiting content length by adding Content-Length or Transfer-Content headers based on the properties of the enclosed entity and the protocol version. This interceptor is required for correct functioning of server side protocol processors.

RequestConnControl is responsible for adding Connection header to the outgoing requests, which is essential for managing persistence of HTTP/1.0 connections. This interceptor is recommended for client side protocol processors.

ResponseConnControl is responsible for adding Connection header to the outgoing responses, which is essential for managing persistence of HTTP/1.0 connections. This interceptor is recommended for server side protocol processors.

RequestDate is responsible for adding Date header to the outgoing requests. This interceptor is optional for client side protocol processors.

ResponseDate is responsible for adding Date header to the outgoing responses. This interceptor is recommended for server side protocol processors.

RequestExpectContinue is responsible for enabling the 'expect-continue' handshake by adding Expect header. This interceptor is recommended for client side protocol processors.

RequestTargetHost is responsible for adding Host header. This interceptor is required for client side protocol processors.

RequestUserAgent is responsible for adding User-Agent header. This interceptor is recommended for client side protocol processors.

ResponseServer is responsible for adding Server header. This interceptor is recommended for server side protocol processors.

Usually HTTP protocol processors are used to pre-process incoming messages prior to executing application specific processing logic and to post-process outgoing messages. Send the request to the target host and get a response. Please note the BasicHttpProcessor class does not synchronize access to its internal structures and therefore may be thread-unsafe.

Protocol interceptors can collaborate by sharing information - such as a processing state - through an HTTP execution context. HTTP context is a structure that can be used to map an attribute name to an attribute value. Internally HTTP context implementations are usually backed by a HashMap. The primary purpose of the HTTP context is to facilitate information sharing among various logically related components. HTTP context can be used to store a processing state for one message or several consecutive messages. Multiple logically related messages can participate in a logical session if the same context is reused between consecutive messages. HttpContext instances can be linked together to form a hierarchy. In the simplest form one context can use content of another context to obtain default values of attributes not present in the local context. stdout >

HttpParams interface represents a collection of immutable values that define a runtime behavior of a component. In many ways HttpParams is similar to HttpContext. The main distinction between the two lies in their use at runtime. Both interfaces represent a collection of objects that are organized as a map of textual names to object values, but serve distinct purposes: HttpParams is intended to contain simple objects: integers, doubles, strings, collections and objects that remain immutable at runtime. HttpParams is expected to be used in the 'write once - ready many' mode. HttpContext is intended to contain complex objects that are very likely to mutate in the course of HTTP message processing. The purpose of HttpParams is to define a behavior of other components. Usually each complex component has its own HttpParams object. The purpose of HttpContext is to represent an execution state of an HTTP process. Usually the same execution context is shared among many collaborating objects. HttpParams, like HttpContext can be linked together to form a hierarchy. In the simplest form one set of parameters can use content of another one to obtain default values of parameters not present in the local set. stdout > Please note the BasicHttpParams class does not synchronize access to its internal structures and therefore may be thread-unsafe.

HttpParams interface allows for a great deal of flexibility in handling configuration of components. Most importantly, new parameters can be introduced without affecting binary compatibility with older versions. However, HttpParams also has a certain disadvantage compared to regular Java beans: HttpParams cannot be assembled using a DI framework. To mitigate the limitation, HttpCore includes a number of bean classes that can be used in order to initialize HttpParams objects using standard Java bean conventions. stdout >

HttpService is a server side HTTP protocol handler based on the blocking I/O model that implements the essential requirements of the HTTP protocol for the server side message processing as described by RFC 2616. HttpService relies on HttpProcessor instance to generate mandatory protocol headers for all outgoing messages and apply common, cross-cutting message transformations to all incoming and outgoing messages, whereas HTTP request handlers are expected to take care of application specific content generation and processing.

The HttpRequestHandler interface represents a routine for processing of a specific group of HTTP requests. HttpService is designed to take care of protocol specific aspects, whereas individual request handlers are expected to take care of application specific HTTP processing. The main purpose of a request handler is to generate a response object with a content entity to be sent back to the client in response to the given request.

HTTP request handlers are usually managed by a HttpRequestHandlerResolver that matches a request URI to a request handler. HttpCore includes a very simple implementation of the request handler resolver based on a trivial pattern matching algorithm: HttpRequestHandlerRegistry supports only three formats: *, <uri>* and *<uri>. Users are encouraged to provide more sophisticated implementations of HttpRequestHandlerResolver - for instance, based on regular expressions.

When fully initialized and configured, the HttpService can be used to execute and handle requests for active HTTP connections. The HttpService#handleRequest() method reads an incoming request, generates a response and sends it back to the client. This method can be executed in a loop to handle multiple requests on a persistent connection. The HttpService#handleRequest() method is safe to execute from multiple threads. This allows processing of requests on several connections simultaneously, as long as all the protocol interceptors and requests handlers used by the HttpService are thread-safe.

HttpRequestExecutor is a client side HTTP protocol handler based on the blocking I/O model that implements the essential requirements of the HTTP protocol for the client side message processing, as described by RFC 2616. HttpRequestExecutor relies on on HttpProcessor instance to generate mandatory protocol headers for all outgoing messages and apply common, cross-cutting message transformations to all incoming and outgoing messages. Application specific processing can be implemented outside HttpRequestExecutor once the request has been executed and a response has been received. Methods of HttpRequestExecutor are safe to execute from multiple threads. This allows execution of requests on several connections simultaneously, as long as all the protocol interceptors used by the HttpRequestExecutor are thread-safe.

The ConnectionReuseStrategy interface is intended to determine whether the underlying connection can be re-used for processing of further messages after the transmission of the current message has been completed. The default connection re-use strategy attempts to keep connections alive whenever possible. Firstly, it examines the version of the HTTP protocol used to transmit the message. HTTP/1.1 connections are persistent by default, while HTTP/1.0 connections are not. Secondly, it examines the value of the Connection header. The peer can indicate whether it intends to re-use the connection on the opposite side by sending Keep-Alive or Close values in the Connection header. Thirdly, the strategy makes the decision whether the connection is safe to re-use based on the properties of the enclosed entity, if available.