NAME

CGI::Test::Input - Abstract representation of POST input

SYNOPSIS

# Deferred class, only heirs can be created
# $input holds a CGI::Test::Input object

$input->add_widget($w);                     # done internally for you

$input->add_field("name", "value");         # manual input construction
$input->add_file("name", "path");           # deferred reading
$input->add_file_now("name", "/tmp/path");  # read file immediately

syswrite INPUT, $input->data, $input->length;   # if you really have to

# $test is a CGI::Test object
$test->POST("http://server:70/cgi-bin/script", $input);

DESCRIPTION

The CGI::Test::Input class is deferred. It is an abstract representation of HTTP POST request input, as expected by the POST routine of CGI::Test.

Unless you wish to issue a POST request manually to provide carefully crafted input, you do not need to learn the interface of this hierarchy, nor even bother knowing about it.

Otherwise, you need to decide which MIME encoding you want, and create an object of the appropriate type. Note that file uploading requires the use of the multipart/form-data encoding:

          MIME Encoding                    Type to Create
---------------------------------   ---------------------------
application/x-www-form-urlencoded   CGI::Test::Input::URL
multipart/form-data                 CGI::Test::Input::Multipart

Once the object is created, you will be able to add name/value tuples corresponding to the CGI parameters to submit.

For instance:

my $input = CGI::Test::Input::Multipart->make();
$input->add_field("login", "ram");
$input->add_field("password", "foobar");
$input->add_file("organization", "/etc/news/organization");

Then, to inspect what is normally sent to the HTTP server:

print "Content-Type: ", $input->mime_type, "\015\012";
print "Content-Length: ", $input->length, "\015\012";
print "\015\012";
print $input->data;

But usually you'll hand out the $input object to the POST routine of CGI::Test.

INTERFACE

Creation Routine

It is called make as usual. All subclasses have the same creation routine signature, which takes no parameter.

Adding Parameters

CGI parameter are name/value tuples. In case of file uploads, they can have a content as well, the value being the file path on the client machine.

add_field name, value

Adds the CGI parameter name, whose value is value.

add_file name, path

Adds the file upload parameter name, located at path.

The file is not read immediately, so it must remain available until the data routine is called, at least. It is not an error if the file cannot be read at that time.

When not using the multipart/form-data encoding, only the name/path tuple will be transmitted to the script.

add_file_now name, path

Same as add_file, but the file is immediately read and can therefore be disposed of afterwards. However, the file must exist.

add_widget widget

Add any widget, i.e. a CGI::Test::Form::Widget object. This routine is called internally by CGI::Test to construct the input data when submiting a form via POST.

Generation

data

Returns the data, under the proper encoding.

mime_type

Returns the proper MIME encoding type, suitable for inclusion within a Content-Type header.

length

Returns the data length.

BUGS

Please let me know about them.

AUTHOR

Raphael Manfredi <Raphael_Manfredi@pobox.com>

SEE ALSO

CGI::Test(3), CGI::Test::Input::URL(3), CGI::Test::Input::Multipart(3).