lwp-request, GET, HEAD, POST - Simple WWW user agent

SYNOPSIS

        lwp-request [-aeEdvhx] [-m method] [-b <base URL>] [-t <timeout>]
                    [-i <if-modified-since>] [-c <content-type>] [-C <credentials>]
                    [-p <proxy-url>] [-o <format>] <url>...

DESCRIPTION

       This program can be used to send requests to WWW servers
       and your local file system. The request content for POST,
       PUT and CHECKIN methods is read from stdin.  The content
       of the response is printed on stdout.  Error messages are
       printed on stderr.  The program returns a status value
       indicating the number of URLs that failed.

       The options are:

       -m <method>
           Set which method to use for the request.  If this
           option is not used, then the method is derived from
           the name of the program.

       -f  Force request through, even if the program believes
           that the method is illegal.  The server will probably
           reject the request.

       -b <url>
           This URL will be used as the base URL for the URLs
           that the method is applied to.  The base URL only
           takes effect for relative URLs.  If you do not provide
           this option and the URLs are relative, then they will
           be treated as files in the local file system.

       -t <timeout>
           Set the timeout value for the requests.  The timeout
           is the amount of time that the program will wait for a
           response from the remote server before it fails.  The
           default unit for the timeout value is seconds.  You
           might append "m" or "h" to the timeout value to make
           it minutes or hours, respectively.  The default
           timeout is '3m', i.e. 3 minutes.

       -i <time>
           Set the If-Modified-Since header in the request. If
           time it the name of a file, use the modification
           timestamp for this file. If time is not a file, it is
           parsed as a literal date. Take a look at the
           HTTP::Date manpage for recogniced formats.

       -c <content-type>
           Set the Content-Type for the request.  This option is
           content by using the -f option together with -c.  The
           default Content-Type for POST is application/x-www-
           form-urlencoded.  The default Content-type for the
           others is text/plain.

       -p <proxy-url>
           Set the proxy to be used for the requests.  The
           program also loads proxy settings from the
           environment.  You can disable this with the -P option.

       -C <username>:<password>
           Provide credentials for documents that are protected
           by Basic Authentication.  If the document is protected
           and you did not specify the username and password with
           this option, then you will be prompted to provide
           these values.

       The following options controls what is displayed by the
       program:

       -u  Print request method and absolute URL as requests are
           made.

       -U  Print requeset headers in addition to request method
           and absolute URL.

       -s  Print response status code.  This option is always on
           for HEAD requests.

       -S  Print response status chain. This shows redirect and
           autorization requests that are handled by the library.

       -e  Print response headers.  This option is always on for
           HEAD requests.

       -d  Do not print the content of the response.

       -o <format>
           Process HTML content in various ways before printing
           it.  If the content type of the response is not HTML,
           then this option has no effect.  The legal format
           values are; text, ps, links, html and dump.

           If you specify the text format then the HTML will be
           formatted as plain latin1 text.  If you specify the ps
           format then it will be formatted as Postscript.

           The links format will output all links found in the
           HTML document.  Relative links will be expanded to
           absolute ones.

           The html format will reformat the HTML code and the

       -h  Print usage message and quit.

       -x  Extra debugging output.

       -a  Set text(ascii) mode for content input and output.  If
           this option is not used, content input and output is
           done in binary mode.

       Because this program is implemented using the LWP library,
       it will only support the protocols that LWP supports.

SEE ALSO

       the lwp-mirror manpage, the LWP manpage

COPYRIGHT

       Copyright 1995-1997 Gisle Aas.

       This library is free software; you can redistribute it
       and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

AUTHOR

       Gisle Aas <aas@sn.no>