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=============
HTTP Requests
=============

The [`Solar_Http_Request`](/class/Solar_Http_Request_Adapter) class represents a standalone HTTP request (i.e., it's not an HTTP client, just a request).  It uses adapters, so you can (in the future) change between a cURL, pecl_http, or sockets adapter -- but for now, the only adapter is the [streams-based](http://php.net/stream) one.

It's a [fluent class](http://paul-m-jones.com/blog/?p=188), which makes the code a little prettier at times.  Here's a basic GET request that sends "?foo=bar" as the query string, and fetches a [[Solar_Http_Response::Overview | Solar_Http_Response]] object.

{{code: php
    $request = Solar::factory('Solar_Http_Request');
    $request->setUri('http://example.com/index.php')
            ->setContent(array('foo' => 'bar'));
    
    $response = $request->fetch();
}}

(You could also set the query string in the URI if you wanted, but using setContent() does all the esaping for you.)

Here's the same thing as a POST:

{{code: php
    $request = Solar::factory('Solar_Http_Request');
    
    $request->setUri('http://example.com/index.php')
            ->setContent(array('foo' => 'bar'))
            ->setMethod('post');
    
    $response = $request->fetch();
}}


And here's a request with a lot of customization:

{{code: php
    $request = Solar::factory('Solar_Http_Request');
    
    $request->setUri('http://example.com/index.php')
            ->setMethod('post')
            ->setHeader('X-Zim', 'Kneel before Zim!')
            ->setUserAgent('Irken Robot Gir')
            ->setBasicAuth('username', 'password')
            ->setContent(array('foo' => 'bar'));
    
    $response = $request->fetch();
}}

Right now, `Solar_Http_Request` doesn't handle file uploads or the `multipart/form-data` content type, but that functionality is planned for a future release.

However, it does provide SSL support through PHP streams.  You can make a secure request like this (note the use of `https` instead of `http`):

{{code: php
    $request = Solar::factory('Solar_Http_Request');
    $request->setUri('https://example.com/index.php')
            ->setContent(array('foo' => 'bar'));
    
    $response = $request->fetch();
}}

If you need to, you can set various TLS and SSL parameters using these methods:

* [[Solar_Http_Request_Adapter::setSslCafile()]]
* [[Solar_Http_Request_Adapter::setSslCapath()]]
* [[Solar_Http_Request_Adapter::setSslLocalCert()]]
* [[Solar_Http_Request_Adapter::setSslPassphrase()]]
* [[Solar_Http_Request_Adapter::setSslVerifyPeer()]]
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