Internet API

This library allows to simplify internet requests, to serialize Lua tables as POST-data, to perform URL-safe encoding, to instantly download or run files on HDD.

Contents
internet.request
internet.download
internet.encode
internet.serialize
internet.rawRequest

internet.request(string url[, string postData, table headers, string method]): string or nil response, string reason

Performs an request to given url. By default, request method is GET, but if postData was given and there's no specific method, it switches to POST. If specific method was given, then the request method will be just that, regardless of the availability of a postData. You can also pass optional headers parameter with "User-Agent" or something else. Returns an string server response on success, nil and reason message otherwise.

-- GET request
internet.request("http://httpbin.org/ip")

-- POST request
internet.request(
    "http://httpbin.org/post",
    "My POST data",
    {
    	["User-Agent"] = "Mozilla/5.0 (Macintosh; Intel Mac OS X x.y; rv:42.0) Gecko/20100101 Firefox/42.0"
    },
)

-- HEAD request
internet.request(
    "https://httpbin.org/headers",
    nil,
    nil,
    "HEAD"
)

internet.download(string url, string path): boolean success, string reason

Downloads a file via given url to given path. Returns true on success, false and string reason otherwise.

internet.download("http://example.com/file.txt", "/file.txt")

internet.encode(string data): string result

Returns an percent-encoding result of given string for URL-safe requests.

internet.encode("Hello, friend. My name is Игорь.")

> "Hello%2C%20friend.%20My%20name%20is%20%D0%98%D0%B3%D0%BE%D1%80%D1%8C."

internet.serialize(table data): string result

Serializes an Lua table to URL query string and automatically encodes passed data via internet.encode().

internet.serialize({
  array = {
    string = "String test",
    number = 512,
    nestedArray = {
      penis = "Vagina"
    }
  }
})

> "array[nestedArray][penis]=Vagina&array[number]=512&array[string]=String%20test"

internet.rawRequest(string url, string or nil postData, table or nil headers, function chunkHandler[, int chunkSize, string method]): boolean response, string reason

This method is used by internet.request() and internet.download(). It provides calling of chunkHandler function on every downloaded chunk of data from server. Every chunkHandler call happens with downloading of given chunkSize bytes of data. Downloaded chunk is being passed as argument to chunkHandler.

For example, it's very useful for displaying something on screen of single-thread computers while processing large amount of data from server. Returns true on successful finishing request, false and reason message otherwise.

internet.rawRequest(
  "http://httpbin.org/user-agent",
  nil,
  nil,
  function(chunk
    -- Do something with downloaded chunk of data
  end,
  8
)

> "'user-ag"
> "ent':'Mo"
> "zilla/5."
> "0 (Macin"
> "tosh; In"
> "tel Mac "
...