# hreq
hreq is a user first async http client and server.
#### Early days
This library needs road testing. Bug reports and PRs are very welcome!
#### Principles
The principles of this library are:
* User first API built on the http crate.
* Blocking or async.
* Pure rust.
```rust
use hreq::prelude::*;
fn main() -> Result<(), hreq::Error> {
// Use plain http API request builder with
// trait extensions for extra convenience
// in handling query parameters and other
// request configurations.
let response = Request::builder()
.uri("https://myapi.acme.com/ingest")
.query("api_key", "secret")
.call().block()?;
// More convenience on the http response.
// Like shortcuts to read or parse
// response headers.
let x_req_id =
response.header_as::<usize>("x-req-id")
.unwrap();
// A Body type with easy ways to
// get the content.
let mut body = response.into_body();
let contents = body.read_to_string().block()?;
assert_eq!(contents, "Hello world!");
Ok(())
}
```
## User first
_User first_ means that in situations where there are trade offs
between ergonomics and performance, or ergonomics and correctness,
extra weight will be put towards ergonomics. hreq does not attempt
to win any performance or benchmark competitions at the same time
as it should not be particularly slow or wasteful of system
resources.
## http crate
Many rust http client/servers use some variant of the [http crate].
It's often copied into the local source tree and extended from there.
When writing a service that uses both a web server and
client crate, one often ends up with similar, but not exactly the
same versions of types like `http::Request` and `http::Response`.
hreq works using extension traits only. It re-exports the http
crate, but does not copy or modify it. It therefore adheres
strictly to the exact API definition as set out by the
http crate as well as avoids furthering the confusion of having
multiple types with the same name.
## Blocking and async
Rust's async story is fantastic, but not every situation requires
async. hreq "fakes" being a blocking library by default having a
very minimal tokio runtime ([`rt-core`]) combined with a `.block()`
call that is placed where we expect an `.await` in an async
situation.
```rust
use hreq::prelude::*;
let res = Request::get("https://www.google.com")
.call().block();
```
### Why?
hreq is async through-and-through and ultimately relies on an
async variant of [`TcpStream`] for it to function. `TcpStream` in
turn needs to be provided by the runtime (tokio or async-std)
because the TCP socket is one of those things that is tightly
integrated with the async event loop.
There are talks of rust providing a simple single threaded
executor as part of the std lib. This only solves half of the
problem since `TcpStream` is tightly integrated with the event
loop and (so far) that is not considered for std.
## Async runtime
The async runtime is "pluggable" and comes in some different
flavors.
* `AsyncStd`. Requires the feature `async-std`. Supports
`.block()`.
* `TokioSingle`. The default option. A minimal tokio `rt-core`
which executes calls in one single thread. It does nothing
until the current thread blocks on a future using `.block()`.
* `TokioShared`. Picks up on a shared runtime by using a
[`Handle`]. This runtime cannot use the `.block()` extension
trait since that requires having a direct connection to the
tokio [`Runtime`].
* `TokioOwned`. Uses a preconfigured tokio [`Runtime`] that is
"handed over" to hreq.
How to configure the options is explained in [`AsyncRuntime`].
## Agent, redirect and retries
All calls in hreq goes through an [`Agent`]. The agent provides
three main functions:
* Retries
* Connection pooling
* Cookie handling
However the simplest use of hreq creates a new agent for every call, which
means connection pooling and cookie handling is only happening to a limited
extent (when following redirects).
```rust
use hreq::prelude::*;
let res1 = Request::get("https://www.google.com")
.call().block(); // creates a new agent
// this call doesn't reuse any cookies or connections.
let res2 = Request::get("https://www.google.com")
.call().block(); // creates another new agent
```
To use connection pooling and cookies between multiple calls, we need to
create an agent.
```rust
use hreq::prelude::*;
use hreq::Agent;
let mut agent = Agent::new();
let req1 = Request::get("https://www.google.com")
.with_body(()).unwrap();
let res1 = agent.send(req1).block();
let req2 = Request::get("https://www.google.com")
.with_body(()).unwrap();
// this call (tries to) reuse the connection in
// req1 since we are using the same agent.
let res2 = agent.send(req2).block();
```
### Retries
The internet is a dangerous place and http requests fail all the time.
hreq tries to be helpful and has a built in retries by default. However
it will only retry when appropriate.
* The default number of retries is 5 with a backoff going 125,
250, 500, 1000 milliseconds.
* Only for idempotent methods: GET, HEAD, OPTIONS, TRACE, PUT and DELETE.
* Only when the encountered error is retryable, such as BrokenPipe,
ConnectionAborted, ConnectionReset, Interrupted.
To disable retries, one must use a configured agent:
```rust
use hreq::prelude::*;
use hreq::Agent;
let mut agent = Agent::new();
agent.retries(0); // disable all retries
let req = Request::get("https://www.google.com")
.with_body(()).unwrap();
let res = agent.send(req).block();
```
### Redirects
By default hreq follows up to 5 redirects. Redirects can be turned off
by using an explicit agent in the same way as for retries.
## Compression
hreq supports content compression both for requests and responses. The
feature is enabled by receving or setting the `content-encoding` header
to `gzip`. Currently hreq only supports `gzip`.
### Example request with gzip body:
```rust
use hreq::prelude::*;
let res = Request::post("https://my-special-server/content")
.header("content-encoding", "gzip") // enables gzip compression
.send("request that is compressed".to_string()).block();
```
The automatic compression and decompression can be turned off,
see [`content_encode`] and [`content_decode`].
## Charset
Similarly to body compression hreq provides an automatic way of
encoding and decoding text in request/response bodies. Rust uses
utf-8 for `String` and assumes text bodies should be encoded as
utf-8. Using the `content-type` we can change how hreq handles
both requests and responses.
### Example sending an iso-8859-1 encoded body.
```rust
use hreq::prelude::*;
// This is a &str in rust default utf-8
let content = "Und in die Bäumen hängen Löwen und Bären";
let req = Request::post("https://my-euro-server/")
// This header converts the body to iso8859-1
.header("content-type", "text/plain; charset=iso8859-1")
.send(content).block();
```
Receiving bodies of other charset is mostly transparent to the
user. It will decode the body to utf-8 if a `content-type` header
is present in the response.
Only content types with a mime type `text/*` will be decoded.
The charset encoding does not need to work only with utf-8. It
can transcode between different encodings as appropriate. See
[`charset_encode_source`] and [`charset_decode_target`].
## Body size
Depending on how a body is provided to a request hreq may or may
not be able to know the total body size. For example, when the
body provided as a string hreq will set the `content-size` header,
and when the body is a `Reader`, hreq will not know the content
size, but it can be set by the user.
If the content size is not known for HTTP1.1, hreq is forced to
use `transfer-encoding: chunked`. For HTTP2, this problem never
arises.
## JSON
By default, hreq uses the [serde] crate to send and receive JSON
encoded bodies. Because serde is so ubiquitous in Rust, this
feature is enabled by default.
```rust
use hreq::Body;
use serde_derive::Serialize;
#[derive(Serialize)]
struct MyJsonThing {
name: String,
age: u8,
}
let json = MyJsonThing {
name: "Karl Kajal".to_string(),
age: 32,
};
let body = Body::from_json(&json);
```
## Capabilities
* Async or blocking
* Pure rust
* HTTP/2 and HTTP/1.1
* TLS (https)
* Timeout for entire request and reading the response
* Switchable async runtime (`tokio`, `async-std`)
* Single threaded by default
* Built as an extension to `http` crate.
* Query parameter manipulation in request builder
* Many ways to create a request body
* Follow redirects
* Retry on connection problems
* HTTP/1.1 transfer-encoding chunked
* Gzip encode/decode
* Charset encode/decode
* Connection pooling
* JSON serialize/deserialize
* Cookies
[http crate]: https://crates.io/crates/http
[`rt-core`]: https://docs.rs/tokio/latest/tokio/runtime/index.html#basic-scheduler
[`TcpStream`]: https://doc.rust-lang.org/std/net/struct.TcpStream.html
[`Handle`]: https://docs.rs/tokio/latest/tokio/runtime/struct.Handle.html
[`Runtime`]: https://docs.rs/tokio/latest/tokio/runtime/struct.Runtime.html
[`AsyncRuntime`]: https://docs.rs/hreq/latest/hreq/enum.AsyncRuntime.html
[`Agent`]: https://docs.rs/hreq/latest/hreq/struct.Agent.html
[Expect-100]: https://developer.mozilla.org/en-US/docs/Web/HTTP/Status/100
[`content_encode`]: https://docs.rs/hreq/latest/hreq/trait.RequestBuilderExt.html#tymethod.content_encode
[`content_decode`]: https://docs.rs/hreq/latest/hreq/trait.RequestBuilderExt.html#tymethod.content_decode
[`charset_encode_source`]: https://docs.rs/hreq/latest/hreq/trait.RequestBuilderExt.html#tymethod.charset_encode_source
[`charset_decode_target`]: https://docs.rs/hreq/latest/hreq/trait.RequestBuilderExt.html#tymethod.charset_decode_target
[serde]: https://crates.io/crates/serde
License: MIT/Apache-2.0