Chapter 5 The HTTP Package

5.1 Introduction

The Hypertext Transfer Protocol (HTTP) is the native protocol for the Internet's World Wide Web. Detailed information is in RFC 2616, at http://www.w3.org/Protocols/rfc2616/rfc2616.html.

The HTTP package is conditionally compliant with RFC 2616. It includes support for:

Persistent connections and pipelined requests with HTTP/1.1 servers

Interpretation of chunked-data responses from HTTP/1.1 servers

Requesting part of an HTTP document

Sending and receiving large files through the use of a streaming mechanism

Breaking out of requests that might hang indefinitely

5.1.1 Classes in the HTTP Package

This package includes the following classes:


RWHttpAgent	RWHttpHostHeader
RWHttpAuthorizationHeaderBase	RWHttpIfDateRangeHeader
RWHttpBasicAuthorizationHeader	RWHttpIfEntityTagRangeHeader
RWHttpClient	RWHttpIfModifiedSinceHeader
RWHttpContentLengthHeader	RWHttpRange
RWHttpDate	RWHttpRangeHeader
RWHttpDateHeader	RWHttpReply
RWHttpEntityTag	RWHttpRequest
RWHttpEntityTagHeaderBase	RWHttpRequestBody
RWHttpFromHeader	RWHttpRequestStreamBody
RWHttpGenericHeader	RWHttpRequestStringBody
RWHttpHeaderBase	RWHttpSocketClient
RWHttpHeaderList	RWHttpUserAgentHeader

5.1.2 Header Files

The rw/http directory contains a header file for each class. The header file names have the form classname.h. For example, the header file for RWHttpAgent is RWHttpAgent.h.

You can also use the umbrella header file, http.h, which includes the header files for all classes in the HTTP package.