From: tsuraan <tsuraan@...>
Date: 2005-11-12T00:27:36+09:00
Subject: net/http broken?

The documentation for net/http on ruby-doc.org gives the following
snippet for getting data from a server using HTTP POST:

    require 'net/http'
    require 'uri'

    res = Net::HTTP.post_form(URI.parse('http://www.example.com/search.cgi'),
                              {'q'=>'ruby', 'max'=>'50'})
    puts res.body

The problem with this is that in ruby 1.8.2 on both my OSX box and my
FreeBSD computer, Net::HTTP does not have a post_form defined.  So,
that example doesn't work.  Another way of doing the same idea, given
by ruby-doc.org, is:

    url = URI.parse('http://www.example.com/todo.cgi')
    req = Net::HTTP::Post.new(url.path)
    req.set_form_data({'from'=>'2005-01-01', 'to'=>'2005-03-31'}, ';')
    res = Net::HTTP.new(url.host, url.port).start { http.request(req) }
    case res
    when Net::HTTPSuccess, Net::HTTPRedirection
      # OK
    else
      res.error!
    end

This has the problem that req has no set_form_data method.  So, does
anyone know what's going wrong?  Is it possible to use the ruby
standard libraries to post data to a server?