http client interface needs rewrite

[hoisie]

Right now the http package has public methods that do POST and GET 
requests. These use the more generic send method, but that isn't publicly 
available. 

Unless you copy the send() code to your local code, you can't send any 
other HTTP requests. 

What is the expected output? What do you see instead?
Expect to use http client to send HEAD and DELETE requests

What is your $GOOS?  $GOARCH?
linux,386

Which revision are you sync'ed to?  (hg log -l 1)
[Mike@KennaFC11 go]$ hg log -l 1
changeset:   4030:52ad1606d994
tag:         tip
user:        Rob Pike <r@golang.org>
date:        Fri Nov 13 13:15:18 2009 -0800
summary:     Explain why


Please provide any additional information below.

[rsc]

Comment 1:

I agree.  There are other issues too, like authentication,
cookies, and HTTP/1.1 persistent connections, that should
be considered too.
We will probably not be able to do this until the launch
buzz dies down for a while.

Owner changed to r...@golang.org.

Status changed to LongTerm.

[gopherbot]

Comment 2 by rossdjones:

This has just bitten me too, so I've had to copy send() and associated code into my 
package :(
Given that some of these issues are likely to be only resolved in the long-term, is a 
shorter-term change of making Send() public feasible, or is it best to just wait? 
Obviously I'm not in a hurry because I have a workaround, I was just wondering.

[rsc]

Comment 3:

Even though I know it's a little bit of a pain,
I'd rather not expose Send, because then we'll
break the people depending on it later.
At least now you know that you made a
local change and don't have an expectation
of it continuing to work in the future.

[rsc]

Comment 4:

Issue #252 has been merged into this issue.

[gopherbot]

Comment 5 by montsamu:

Comment to add that supporting Get of an "https" URL is also requested in the http 
client library instead of result: unsupported protocol scheme "https"

[rsc]

Comment 6:

Issue #355 has been merged into this issue.

[rsc]

Comment 7:

Labels changed: added packagechange.

[hoisie]

Comment 8:

One more issue:
Right now all requests are sent with chunked encoding. However, if the Content-Length 
header is present, it's pointless to use chunked encoding.

[rsc]

Comment 9:

pointless but easy

[jackpal]

Comment 10:

Russ, please reconsider your decision to not expose send.
By keeping it private you are forcing multiple developers to work around the same
problem. And you are 
making it more difficult for developers to share code with each other. (I want to
publish my UPnP 
implementation, but I'm blocked in doing so by the 3 bugs in the net and HTTP code.)
Your stated reason for keeping Send private is to make it easier for you to change the
http API compatibly. But 
given that Response is already public, I can't imagine any significant change to the
http API that wouldn't 
break existing clients.
And given that Go changes incompatibly every month anyway, I see little benefit to
keeping the http code 
especially stable.
I expect that you will give in to temptation and change http incompatibly before go
becomes API stable, so all 
you're doing now is making the http library less useful.
The alternative is for developers to start maintaining an "extended" version of the net
and http libraries, that 
has these additional features.
Is that what you recommend?

[hoisie]

Comment 11:

I made a small proposal that would solve most of these issues:
http://groups.google.com/group/golang-nuts/browse_thread/thread/c381b81c291bb527

[gopherbot]

Comment 12 by peterbourgon:

I'm running into http.Request-related problems in yet another application I'm writing.
Can we prioritize this 
issue?

[bradfitz]

Comment 13:

The bulk of the work has been done on this now.  (there's now a configurable Client
struct and a Transport interface)
I can keep this bug open until some more optional interfaces on http.Client land.

Owner changed to bradf...@golang.org.

[bradfitz]

Comment 14:

Status changed to Started.

[bradfitz]

Comment 15:

Labels changed: added pkg-http.