support PATCH HTTP method

lib/HTTP/Request.pm

@@ -185,7 +185,7 @@ This constructs a new request object by parsing the given string.
 =item $r->method( $val )
 
 This is used to get/set the method attribute.  The method should be a
-short string like "GET", "HEAD", "PUT" or "POST".
+short string like "GET", "HEAD", "PUT", "PATCH" or "POST".
 
 =item $r->uri
 

lib/HTTP/Request/Common.pm

@@ -7,7 +7,7 @@ our $DYNAMIC_FILE_UPLOAD ||= 0;  # make it defined (don't know why)
 
 use Exporter 5.57 'import';
 
-our @EXPORT =qw(GET HEAD PUT POST);
+our @EXPORT =qw(GET HEAD PUT PATCH POST);
 our @EXPORT_OK = qw($DYNAMIC_FILE_UPLOAD DELETE);
 
 require HTTP::Request;
@@ -21,7 +21,7 @@ sub GET  { _simple_req('GET',  @_); }
 sub HEAD { _simple_req('HEAD', @_); }
 sub DELETE { _simple_req('DELETE', @_); }
 
-for my $type (qw(PUT POST)) {
+for my $type (qw(PUT PATCH POST)) {
     no strict 'refs';
     *{ __PACKAGE__ . "::" . $type } = sub {
         return request_type_with_data($type, @_);
@@ -346,8 +346,8 @@ following call
 but is less cluttered.  What is different is that a header named
 C<Content> will initialize the content part of the request instead of
 setting a header field.  Note that GET requests should normally not
-have a content, so this hack makes more sense for the PUT() and POST()
-functions described below.
+have a content, so this hack makes more sense for the PUT(), PATCH()
+ and POST() functions described below.
 
 The get(...) method of C<LWP::UserAgent> exists as a shortcut for
 $ua->request(GET ...).
@@ -375,6 +375,14 @@ there is no way to directly specify a header that is actually called
 "Content".  If you really need this you must update the request
 returned in a separate statement.
 
+=item PATCH $url
+
+=item PATCH $url, Header => Value,...
+
+=item PATCH $url, Header => Value,..., Content => $content
+
+Like PUT() but the method in the request is "PATCH".
+
 =item DELETE $url
 
 =item DELETE $url, Header => Value,...

t/common-req.t

@@ -2,7 +2,7 @@ use strict;
 use warnings;
 
 use Test::More;
-plan tests => 59;
+plan tests => 61;
 
 use HTTP::Request::Common;
 
@@ -40,6 +40,10 @@ $r = PUT "http://www.sn.no",
      { foo => "bar" };
 is($r->content, "foo=bar");
 
+$r = PATCH "http://www.sn.no",
+     { foo => "bar" };
+is($r->content, "foo=bar");
+
 #--- Test POST requests ---
 
 $r = POST "http://www.sn.no", [foo => 'bar;baz',
@@ -233,3 +237,9 @@ $r = HTTP::Request::Common::PUT 'http://www.example.com',
     'Content' => 'foobarbaz',
     'Content-Length' => 12;   # a slight lie
 is($r->header('Content-Length'), 9);
+
+$r = HTTP::Request::Common::PATCH 'http://www.example.com',
+    'Content-Type' => 'application/octet-steam',
+    'Content' => 'foobarbaz',
+    'Content-Length' => 12;   # a slight lie
+is($r->header('Content-Length'), 9);