HTTP request for a client connection.

This object has a number of properties for setting up the HTTP header of the request. When the header has been set up the methods from the IOSink can be used to write the actual body of the HTTP request. When one of the IOSink methods is used for the first time the request header is send. Calling any methods that will change the header after it is sent will throw an exception.

When writing string data through the IOSink the encoding used will be determined from the "charset" parameter of the "Content-Type" header.

HttpClientRequest request = ...
request.headers.contentType
    = new ContentType("application", "json", charset: "utf-8");
request.write(...);  // Strings written will be UTF-8 encoded.

If no charset is provided the default of ISO-8859-1 (Latin 1) will be used.

HttpClientRequest request = ...
request.headers.add(HttpHeaders.CONTENT_TYPE, "text/plain");
request.write(...);  // Strings written will be ISO-8859-1 encoded.

If an unsupported encoding is used an exception will be thrown if using one of the write methods taking a string.

abstract class HttpClientRequest implements IOSink {
 /**
  * The method of the request.
  */
 String get method;

 /**
  * The uri of the request.
  */
 Uri get uri;

 /**
  * Gets and sets the content length of the request. If the size of
  * the request is not known in advance set content length to -1,
  * which is also the default.
  */
 int contentLength;

 /**
  * Returns the request headers.
  */
 HttpHeaders get headers;

 /**
  * Cookies to present to the server (in the 'cookie' header).
  */
 List<Cookie> get cookies;

 /**
  * Gets and sets the requested persistent connection state.
  * The default value is [:true:].
  */
 bool persistentConnection;

 /**
  * A [HttpClientResponse] future that will complete once the response is
  * available. If an error occurs before the response is available, this
  * future will complete with an error.
  */
 Future<HttpClientResponse> get done;

 /**
  * Close the request for input. Returns the value of [done].
  */
 Future<HttpClientResponse> close();

 /**
  * Set this property to [:true:] if this request should
  * automatically follow redirects. The default is [:true:].
  *
  * Automatic redirect will only happen for "GET" and "HEAD" requests
  * and only for the status codes [:HttpHeaders.MOVED_PERMANENTLY:]
  * (301), [:HttpStatus.FOUND:] (302),
  * [:HttpStatus.MOVED_TEMPORARILY:] (302, alias for
  * [:HttpStatus.FOUND:]), [:HttpStatus.SEE_OTHER:] (303) and
  * [:HttpStatus.TEMPORARY_REDIRECT:] (307). For
  * [:HttpStatus.SEE_OTHER:] (303) autmatic redirect will also happen
  * for "POST" requests with the method changed to "GET" when
  * following the redirect.
  *
  * All headers added to the request will be added to the redirection
  * request(s). However, any body send with the request will not be
  * part of the redirection request(s).
  */
 bool followRedirects;

 /**
  * Set this property to the maximum number of redirects to follow
  * when [followRedirects] is [:true:]. If this number is exceeded the
  * [onError] callback will be called with a [RedirectLimitExceeded]
  * exception. The default value is 5.
  */
 int maxRedirects;

 /**
  * Get information about the client connection. Returns [null] if the socket
  * is not available.
  */
 HttpConnectionInfo get connectionInfo;
}