org.apache.commons.httpclient

Class HeaderElement

Implemented Interfaces:
Serializable

public class HeaderElement
extends NameValuePair

One element of an HTTP header's value.

Some HTTP headers (such as the set-cookie header) have values that can be decomposed into multiple elements. Such headers must be in the following form:

 header  = [ element ] *( "," [ element ] )
 element = name [ "=" [ value ] ] *( ";" [ param ] )
 param   = name [ "=" [ value ] ]

 name    = token
 value   = ( token | quoted-string )

 token         = 1*<any char except "=", ",", ";", <"> and
                       white space>
 quoted-string = <"> *( text | quoted-char ) <">
 text          = any char except <">
 quoted-char   = "\" char
 

Any amount of white space is allowed between any part of the header, element or param and is ignored. A missing value in any element or param will be stored as the empty String; if the "=" is also missing null will be stored instead.

This class represents an individual header element, containing both a name/value pair (value may be null) and optionally a set of additional parameters.

This class also exposes a parse(String) method for parsing a Header value into an array of elements.

Version:
$Revision: 155418 $ $Date: 2005-02-26 08:01:52 -0500 (Sat, 26 Feb 2005) $
Authors:
B.C. Holmes
Park, Sung-Gu
Mike Bowler
Oleg Kalnichevski
Since:
1.0
See Also:
Header

Constructor Summary

HeaderElement()
Default constructor.
HeaderElement(String name, String value)
Constructor.
HeaderElement(String name, String value, NameValuePair[] parameters)
Constructor with name, value and parameters.
HeaderElement(char[] chars)
Constructor with array of characters.
HeaderElement(char[] chars, int offset, int length)
Constructor with array of characters.

Method Summary

NameValuePair
getParameterByName(String name)
Returns parameter with the given name, if found.
NameValuePair[]
getParameters()
Get parameters, if any.
static HeaderElement[]
parse(String headerValue)
Deprecated. Use #parseElements(String).
static HeaderElement[]
parseElements(String headerValue)
This parses the value part of a header.
static HeaderElement[]
parseElements(char[] headerValue)
This parses the value part of a header.

Methods inherited from class org.apache.commons.httpclient.NameValuePair

equals, getName, getValue, hashCode, setName, setValue, toString

Constructor Details

HeaderElement

public HeaderElement()
Default constructor.

HeaderElement

public HeaderElement(String name,
                     String value)
Constructor.
Parameters:
name - my name
value - my (possibly null) value

HeaderElement

public HeaderElement(String name,
                     String value,
                     NameValuePair[] parameters)
Constructor with name, value and parameters.
Parameters:
name - my name
value - my (possibly null) value
parameters - my (possibly null) parameters

HeaderElement

public HeaderElement(char[] chars)
Constructor with array of characters.
Parameters:
chars - the array of characters
Since:
3.0

HeaderElement

public HeaderElement(char[] chars,
                     int offset,
                     int length)
Constructor with array of characters.
Parameters:
chars - the array of characters
offset - - the initial offset.
length - - the length.
Since:
3.0

Method Details

getParameterByName

public NameValuePair getParameterByName(String name)
Returns parameter with the given name, if found. Otherwise null is returned
Parameters:
name - The name to search by.
Returns:
NameValuePair parameter with the given name

getParameters

public NameValuePair[] getParameters()
Get parameters, if any.
Returns:
parameters as an array of NameValuePairs
Since:
2.0

parse

public static final HeaderElement[] parse(String headerValue)
            throws HttpException

Deprecated. Use #parseElements(String).

This parses the value part of a header. The result is an array of HeaderElement objects.
Parameters:
headerValue - the string representation of the header value (as received from the web server).
Returns:
array of HeaderElements.
Throws:
HttpException - if the above syntax rules are violated.

parseElements

public static final HeaderElement[] parseElements(String headerValue)
This parses the value part of a header. The result is an array of HeaderElement objects.
Parameters:
headerValue - the string representation of the header value (as received from the web server).
Returns:
array of HeaderElements.
Since:
3.0

parseElements

public static final HeaderElement[] parseElements(char[] headerValue)
This parses the value part of a header. The result is an array of HeaderElement objects.
Parameters:
headerValue - the array of char representation of the header value (as received from the web server).
Returns:
array of HeaderElements.
Since:
3.0

Copyright (c) 1999-2005 - Apache Software Foundation