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HTTP body types

An HTTP message body is a sequence of bytes that comes after the headers.

Both requests and responses can have bodies.

Below are the HTTP request body types supported by Pororoca.

None

An HTTP message can have no body.

Raw

In this case, a text is converted into UTF-8 bytes, which become the request body.

In Pororoca, it is necessary to specify its MIME type. For example, a JSON raw body uses application/json as its MIME type.

File

For this case, the bytes of a file will become the request body.

The MIME type is also required (Pororoca can infer MIME types from file extensions).

Form URL encoded

They are simple key-value pairs of texts that are converted into URL-encoded strings, paired with = and joined with &.

The MIME type is always application/x-www-form-urlencoded.

Consider the following key-value pairs:

KeyValue
axyz
b123
cabc à é

The resulting request body will be the UTF-8 bytes of the string: a=xyz&b=123&c=abc+%C3%A0+%C3%A9.

Multipart form data

This is a more complex kind of body. It is divided in parts delimited by boundaries and each part has its own MIME type. The boundary is auto-generated and is usually a GUID.

In Pororoca, a part can either be a raw text or a content from a file.

The final request is something like:

POST /test HTTP/1.1
Host: foo.example
Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary="9e0248d8-f117-404e-a46b-51f0382d00bd"

--9e0248d8-f117-404e-a46b-51f0382d00bd
Content-Type: text/plain
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="field1"

value1
--9e0248d8-f117-404e-a46b-51f0382d00bd
Content-Type: image/gif
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="field2"; filename="pirate.gif"

(pirate.gif file bytes)
--9e0248d8-f117-404e-a46b-51f0382d00bd--

GraphQL

GraphQL is a data query syntax that allows to specify which fields of information are wanted, to avoid searching data that is not relevant.

It is composed by a query and its variables, both according to GraphQL syntax.

The resulting request body will be a JSON, like:

json
{
  "query": "(your GraphQL query)",
  "variables": "(your GraphQL variables)"
}