# HTTP Module
| Since  | Origin / Contributor  | Maintainer  | Source  |
| :----- | :-------------------- | :---------- | :------ |
| 2016-01-15 | [esphttpclient](https://github.com/Caerbannog/esphttpclient) / [Vowstar](https://github.com/vowstar) | [Vowstar](https://github.com/vowstar) | [http.c](../../app/modules/http.c)|

Basic HTTP *client* module that provides an interface to do GET/POST/PUT/DELETE over HTTP(S), as well as customized requests. Due to the memory constraints on ESP8266, the supported page/body size is limited by available memory. Attempting to receive pages larger than this will fail. If larger page/body sizes are necessary, consider using [`net.createConnection()`](net.md#netcreateconnection) and stream in the data.

!!! attention

    It is **not** possible to execute concurrent HTTP requests using this module.

Each request method takes a callback which is invoked when the response has been received from the server. The first argument is the status code, which is either a regular HTTP status code, or -1 to denote a DNS, connection or out-of-memory failure, or a timeout (currently at 60 seconds).

For each operation it is possible to provide custom HTTP headers or override standard headers. By default the `Host` header is deduced from the URL and `User-Agent` is `ESP8266`. Note, however, that the `Connection` header *can not* be overridden! It is always set to `close`.

HTTP redirects (HTTP status 300-308) are followed automatically up to a limit of 20 to avoid the dreaded redirect loops.

When the callback is invoked, it is passed the HTTP status code, the body as it was received, and a table of the response headers. All the header names have been lower cased
to make it easy to access. If there are multiple headers of the same name, then only the last one is returned.

**SSL/TLS support**

!!! attention

    Secure (`https`) connections come with quite a few limitations.  Please see
    the warnings in the [tls module](tls.md)'s documentation.

## http.delete()

Executes a HTTP DELETE request. Note that concurrent requests are not supported.

#### Syntax
`http.delete(url, headers, body, callback)`

#### Parameters
- `url` The URL to fetch, including the `http://` or `https://` prefix
- `headers` Optional additional headers to append, *including \r\n*; may be `nil`
- `body` The body to post; must already be encoded in the appropriate format, but may be empty
- `callback` The callback function to be invoked when the response has been received or an error occurred; it is invoked with the arguments `status_code`, `body` and `headers`. In case of an error `status_code` is set to -1.

#### Returns
`nil`

#### Example
```lua
http.delete('http://httpbin.org/delete',
  "",
  "",
  function(code, data)
    if (code < 0) then
      print("HTTP request failed")
    else
      print(code, data)
    end
  end)
```

## http.get()

Executes a HTTP GET request. Note that concurrent requests are not supported.

#### Syntax
`http.get(url, headers, callback)`

#### Parameters
- `url` The URL to fetch, including the `http://` or `https://` prefix
- `headers` Optional additional headers to append, *including \r\n*; may be `nil`
- `callback` The callback function to be invoked when the response has been received or an error occurred; it is invoked with the arguments `status_code`, `body` and `headers`. In case of an error `status_code` is set to -1.

#### Returns
`nil`

#### Example
```lua
http.get("http://httpbin.org/ip", nil, function(code, data)
    if (code < 0) then
      print("HTTP request failed")
    else
      print(code, data)
    end
  end)
```

## http.post()

Executes a HTTP POST request. Note that concurrent requests are not supported.

#### Syntax
`http.post(url, headers, body, callback)`

#### Parameters
- `url` The URL to fetch, including the `http://` or `https://` prefix
- `headers` Optional additional headers to append, *including \r\n*; may be `nil`
- `body` The body to post; must already be encoded in the appropriate format, but may be empty
- `callback` The callback function to be invoked when the response has been received or an error occurred; it is invoked with the arguments `status_code`, `body` and `headers`. In case of an error `status_code` is set to -1.

#### Returns
`nil`

#### Example
```lua
http.post('http://httpbin.org/post',
  'Content-Type: application/json\r\n',
  '{"hello":"world"}',
  function(code, data)
    if (code < 0) then
      print("HTTP request failed")
    else
      print(code, data)
    end
  end)
```

## http.put()

Executes a HTTP PUT request. Note that concurrent requests are not supported.

#### Syntax
`http.put(url, headers, body, callback)`

#### Parameters
- `url` The URL to fetch, including the `http://` or `https://` prefix
- `headers` Optional additional headers to append, *including \r\n*; may be `nil`
- `body` The body to post; must already be encoded in the appropriate format, but may be empty
- `callback` The callback function to be invoked when the response has been received or an error occurred; it is invoked with the arguments `status_code`, `body` and `headers`. In case of an error `status_code` is set to -1.

#### Returns
`nil`

#### Example
```lua
http.put('http://httpbin.org/put',
  'Content-Type: text/plain\r\n',
  'Hello!\nStay a while, and listen...\n',
  function(code, data)
    if (code < 0) then
      print("HTTP request failed")
    else
      print(code, data)
    end
  end)
```

## http.request()

Execute a custom HTTP request for any HTTP method. Note that concurrent requests are not supported.

#### Syntax
`http.request(url, method, headers, body, callback)`

#### Parameters
- `url` The URL to fetch, including the `http://` or `https://` prefix
- `method` The HTTP method to use, e.g. "GET", "HEAD", "OPTIONS" etc
- `headers` Optional additional headers to append, *including \r\n*; may be `nil`
- `body` The body to post; must already be encoded in the appropriate format, but may be empty
- `callback` The callback function to be invoked when the response has been received or an error occurred; it is invoked with the arguments `status_code`, `body` and `headers`. In case of an error `status_code` is set to -1.

#### Returns
`nil`

#### Example
```lua
http.request("http://httpbin.org", "HEAD", "", "",
  function(code, data)
    if (code < 0) then
      print("HTTP request failed")
    else
      print(code, data)
    end
  end)
```
