NAME

Rose::URI - A URI object built for easy and efficient manipulation.

SYNOPSIS

use Rose::URI;

$uri = Rose::URI->new('http://un:pw@foo.com/bar/baz?a=1&b=two+3');

$scheme = $uri->scheme;
$user   = $uri->username;
$pass   = $uri->password;
$host   = $uri->host;
$path   = $uri->path;
...

$b = $uri->query_param('b');  # $b = "two 3"
$a = $uri->query_param('a');  # $a = 1

$uri->query_param_delete('b');
$uri->query_param('c' => 'blah blah');
...

print $uri;

DESCRIPTION

Rose::URI is a limited alternative to URI. The important differences are as follows.

Rose::URI provides a rich set of query string manipulation methods. Query parameters can be added, removed, and checked for their existence. URI allows the entire query to be set or returned as a whole via query_form() or query(), and the URI::QueryParam module provides a few more methods for query string manipulation.

Rose::URI supports query parameters with multiple values (e.g. "a=1&a=2"). URI has limited support for this (hrough query_form()'s list return value. Better methods are available in URI::QueryParam.

Rose::URI uses Apache's C-based URI parsing and HTML escaping functions when running in a mod_perl 1.x web server environment.

Rose::URI stores each URI "in pieces" (scheme, host, path, etc.) and then assembles those pieces when the entire URI is needed as a string. This technique is based on the assumption that the URI will be manipulated many more times than it is stringified. If this is not the case in your usage scenario, then URI may be a better alternative.

Now some similarities: both classes use the overload module to allow "magic" stringification. Both URI and Rose::URI objects can be printed and compared as if they were strings.

Rose::URI actually uses the URI class to do the heavy lifting of parsing URIs when not running in a mod_perl 1.x environment.

Finally, a caveat: Rose::URI supports only "http"-like URIs. This includes ftp, http, https, and other similar looking URIs. URI supports many more esoteric URI types (gopher, mailto, etc.) If you need to support these formats, use URI instead.

CONSTRUCTOR

new [ URI | PARAMS ]

Constructs a URI object based on URI or PARAMS, where URI is a string and PARAMS are described below. Returns a new Rose::URI object.

The query string portion of thee URI argument may use either "&" or ";" as the parameter separator. Examples:

$uri = Rose::URI->new('/foo?a=1&b=2');
$uri = Rose::URI->new('/foo?a=1;b=2'); # same thing

The query_param_separator parameter determines what is used when the query string (or the whole URI) is output as a string later.

Rose::URI uses URI or Apache::URI (when running under mod_perl 1.x) to do its URI string parsing.

Valid PARAMS are:

fragment
host
password
path
port
query
scheme
username

query_param_separator

Which correspond to the following URI pieces:

<scheme>://<username:password>@<path>?<query>#<fragment>

All the above parameters accept strings. See below for more information about the query parameter. The query_param_separator parameter determines the separator used when constructing the query string. It is "&" by default (e.g. "a=1&b=2")

METHODS

abs [BASE]

This method exists solely for compatibility with URI.

Returns an absolute Rose::URI object. If the current URI is already absolute, then a reference to it is simply returned. If the current URI is relative, then a new absolute URI is constructed by combining the URI and the BASE, and returned.

as_string

Returns the URI as a string. The string is "URI escaped" (reserved URI characters are replaced with %xx sequences), but not "HTML escaped" (ampersands are not escaped, for example).

clone

Returns a copy of the Rose::URI object.

query QUERY

Sets the URI's query based on QUERY. QUERY may be a query string (e.g. "a=1&b=2"), a reference to a hash, or a list of name/value pairs.

Query strings may use either "&" or ";" as their query separator. If a "&" character exists anywhere in teh query string, it is assumed to be the separator.

If none of the characters "&", ";", or "=" appears in the query string, then thee entire query string is taken as a single parameter name with an undefined value.

Hashes and lists should specify multiple parameter values using array references.

Here are some examples representing the query string "a=1&a=2&b=3"

$uri->query("a=1&a=2&b=3");             # string
$uri->query("a=1;a=2;b=3");             # same thing
$uri->query({ a => [ 1, 2 ], b => 3 }); # hash ref
$uri->query(a => [ 1, 2 ], b => 3);     # list

Returns the current (or new) query as a URI-escaped (but not HTML-escaped) query string.

query_form QUERY

Implementation of URI's method of the same name. This exists for backwards compatibility purposes only and should not be used (or necessary). See the URI documentation for more details.

query_hash

Returns the current query as a hash (in list context) or reference to a hash (in scalar context), with multiple parameter values represented by array references (see query() for details).

The return value is a shallow copy of the actual query hash. It should be treated as read-only unless you really know what you are doing.

Example:

$uri = Rose::URI->new('/foo?a=1&b=2&a=2');

$h = $uri->query_hash; # $h = { a => [ 1, 2 ], b => 2 }

query_param NAME [, VALUE]

Get or set a query parameter. If only NAME is passed, it returns the value of the query parameter named NAME. Parameters with multiple values are returned as array references. If both NAME and VALUE are passed, it sets the parameter named NAME to VALUE, where VALUE can be a simple scalar value or a reference to an array of simple scalar values.

Examples:

$uri = Rose::URI->new('/foo?a=1');

$a = $uri->query_param('a'); # $a = 1

$uri->query_param('a' => 3); # query string is now "a=3"

$uri->query_param('b' => [ 4, 5 ]); # now "a=3&b=4&b=5"

$b = $uri->query_param('b'); # $b = [ 4, 5 ];

query_params NAME [, VALUE]

Same as query_param(), except the return value is always either an array (in list context) or reference to an array (in scalar context), even if there is only one value.

Examples:

$uri = Rose::URI->new('/foo?a=1&b=1&b=2');

$a = $uri->query_params('a'); # $a = [ 1 ]
@a = $uri->query_params('a'); # @a = ( 1 )

$b = $uri->query_params('a'); # $b = [ 1, 2 ]
@b = $uri->query_params('a'); # @b = ( 1, 2 )

query_param_add NAME, VALUE

Adds a new value to a query parameter. Example:

$uri = Rose::URI->new('/foo?a=1&b=1');

$a = $uri->query_param_add('b' => 2); # now "a=2&b=1&b=2"

Returns an array (in list context) or reference to an array (in scalar context) of the new parameter value(s).

query_param_delete NAME

Deletes all instances of the parameter named NAME from the query.

query_param_exists NAME

Returns a boolean value indicating whether or not a parameter named NAME exists in the query string.

rel BASE

This method exists solely for compatibility with URI.

Returns a relative URI reference if it is possible to make one that denotes the same resource relative to BASE. If not, then the current URI is simply returned.

userinfo

Returns the username and password attributes joined by a ":" (colon). The username and password are not escaped in any way. If there is no password, only the username is returned (without the colon). If neither exist, an empty string is returned.

userinfo_escaped

Returns the username and password attributes joined by a ":" (colon). The username and password are URI-escaped, but not HTML-escaped. If there is no password, only the username is returned (without the colon). If neither exist, an empty string is returned.

AUTHOR

John C. Siracusa (siracusa@mindspring.com)