Request

Introduction

Whenever one of your application URLs are called, a request is received. This request carries the information that will be delivered to your application in order to get a proper response, this means, tell your application what to do and how to do, also sending data to your application.

In order to manage and work with this requests, Glowie has the Glowie\Core\Http\Request class. This class has useful methods to help you handle every kind of request your application receives.

From a controller or middleware, you don't need to instantiate this class to work with it, simply use $this->request property to directly access the Request object. If you want to retrieve the instance from other places, use the static Rails::getRequest() method.

Retrieving request details

In order to retrieve details about a request your application received, you can use the following functions:

• $this->request->getFiles() - Returns an array of files uploaded through an <input type="file">. We recommend using Glowie's Uploader to do this properly.

• $this->request->getURL() - Returns the full requested URL. This means, the entire URL (including query string parameters) the user typed to access your application.

• $this->request->getURI() - Returns the clean requested URI. This means, only the URI (see Routes) the user typed. This does not includes the hostname or query string parameters.

• $this->request->getIPAddress() - Returns the IP address used in the request, if available. If the IP address is not available, this method returns 0.0.0.0.

• $this->request->getMethod() - Returns the HTTP method used in the request.

• $this->request->isSecure() - Returns true if the request was made using a secure HTTPS connection.

• $this->request->isGet() - Returns true if the request was mede using GET method.

• $this->request->isPost() - Returns true if the request was mede using POST method.

Retrieving request data

In order to retrieve data that was passed through the request, use the $this->request->get() method.

The first parameter is the variable key to get. The second is an optional default value. If the variable exists, its value will be returned. Otherwise, the default value will be returned.

This method can retrieve data passed from any kind of HTTP request method.

Example

# user types in myappurl.com/search?query=products&page=1
$query = $this->request->get('query'); # returns "products"
$page = $this->request->get('page'); # returns "1"

You can also uso magic getters to retrieve data as properties from the Request object.

Example

$query = $this->request->query;
$page = $this->request->page;

Converting data
To retrieve all the request data at once as an associative array, use $this->request->toArray().

You can also convert the request data to a JSON string with $this->request->toJson().

Raw data
In order to get the raw request body as a string, use $this->request->getBody().

JSON data
If the request data was sent as a JSON string, you can also use $this->request->getJson() to get an Element with the already parsed request data. If the data is not a valid JSON, null will be returned. You can optionally specify a key of the JSON request to get the value as the first parameter, and a default return value as the second.

Example

$page = $this->request->getJson('page', 1);

Shortcuts
See Retrieving data for a list of shortcuts to retrieve data from specific request methods.

Working with request headers

Headers are piece of information that each request carries with it. In order to retrieve a specific request header value, use the $this->request->getHeader() method.

The first argument is the name of the header you want to get, and the second is an optional default value. If the header exists, its value will be returned. Otherwise, the default value will be returned.

Example

$token = $this->request->getHeader('token');

To retrieve all the request headers at once as an associative array, use $this->request->getHeaders().

Shortcuts
There are a few shortcuts to the most commonly used headers:

• $this->request->getContentType() - Returns the Content-Type header value or null if not available.

• $this->request->getAccept() - Returns the Accept header value or null if not available.

• $this->request->getPreviousUrl() - Returns the previous URL where the user was refered from. Note that this information relies in the Referer header. Be aware that this header cannot be always available.

• $this->request->isAjax() - Returns true if the request was made using AJAX. Note that information relies in the X-Requested-With header. Be aware that this header cannot be sent by default from every Javascript framework.

• $this->request->isMobile() - Returns true if the request was made using a mobile device. This information relies in the User-Agent header matching a list of mobile devices.