# Net::HTTP and handling 302 Redirect

**URL:** <https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/net-http-and-handling-302-redirect/129173>\
**Category:** Ruby\
**Created:** [February 15, 2008, 3:00am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/net-http-and-handling-302-redirect/129173 "2008-02-15T03:00:48Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 5\
**Page:** 1

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![zeeboo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/z/ec9cab/32.png) [@zeeboo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/zeeboo)\
**Post date:** [February 15, 2008, 3:00am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/net-http-and-handling-302-redirect/129173/1 "2008-02-15T03:00:48Z")

</div>

Greetings all. Ruby n00b here.

I’m trying to use Ruby against [ning.com](http://ning.com)’s REST api. My code is close  
to working, but I don’t understand the redirect example provided in  
the Net::HTTP code. I’m hoping that someone can point me in the right  
direction.

— Here’s my code —

#create XML message  
msg = \<\<eof  
blah blah  
eof  
doc = REXML::Document.new( msg )

url = URI.parse(“[https://mySite.ning.com/xn/atom/1.0/content](https://mySite.ning.com/xn/atom/1.0/content)”)

@req = Net::HTTP.new(url.host)  
@req.use\_ssl = false #not using ssl  
@req.set\_debug\_output $stderr  
@req.start() do |req|  
postReq = Net::HTTP::Post.new(url.path)  
postReq.basic\_auth(‘user’, ‘password’)  
postReq[‘Content-Type’]=req.head(url.path)  
postReq.body = doc  
print postReq

```
response = req.post(url.path, postReq)

```

end

This results in the following at the command line when I run:

← “HEAD /xn/atom/1.0/content HTTP/1.1\r\nAccept: _/_\r\nHost:  
[mySite.ning.com](http://mySite.ning.com)\r\n\r\n”  
 → “HTTP/1.1 302 Moved Temporarily\r\n”  
 → “Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 00:45:18 GMT\r\n”  
 → “Server: Ning HTTP Server 2.0\r\n”  
 → “Expires: Thu, 01 Jan 1970 00:00:00 GMT\r\n”  
 → “Set-Cookie: xn\_visitor=438cccb8-1919-404e-874c-  
b5791b46c579;Path=/;[Domain=.ning.com](http://Domain=.ning.com);Expires=Mon, 12-Feb-18 00:45:18  
GMT\r\n”  
 → “X-XN-Trace: e1355fab-b1f3-409a-95bc-72488878cf37\r\n”  
 → “Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2008 00:45:18 GMT\r\n”  
 → “X-XN-Trace: e1355fab-b1f3-409a-95bc-72488878cf37\r\n”  
 → “P3P: CP="UNI STA LOC CURa OURa COR ALL IND"\r\n”  
 → “Vary: X-XN\_APPLICATION\r\n”  
 → “Content-Type: text/html; charset=utf-8\r\n”  
 → “Content-Language: en\r\n”  
 → “Location:  
[Sign In - tmp-1026rkn43isjj](http://mySite.ning.com/main/authorization/signIn?target=http%3A%2F%2FmySite.ning.com%2Frest%2Funsupported-http-method%5Cr%5Cn)”  
 → “Content-Length: 0\r\n”  
 → “\r\n”  
Conn keep-alive  
#Net::HTTP::Post:0x2ede408 ← “POST /xn/atom/1.0/content HTTP/1.1\r  
\nAccept: _/_\r\nContent-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\r  
\nContent-Length: 3\r\nHost: [mySite.ning.com](http://mySite.ning.com)\r\n\r\n”  
 ← c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:174:in `write0': undefined method `dump’ for #\<Net::HTTP::Post POST\> (NoMethodError)  
from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:151:in `write' from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:166:in `writing’  
from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:150:in `write' from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:1549:in `send\_request\_with\_body’  
from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:1534:in `exec' from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:1057:in `request’  
from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:854:in `post' from ning_send.rb:50 from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:547:in `start’  
from ning\_send.rb:39

Anyone have any suggestions? So clueless here. 🙂

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![zeeboo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/z/ec9cab/32.png) [@zeeboo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/zeeboo)\
**Post date:** [February 15, 2008, 4:48am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/net-http-and-handling-302-redirect/129173/2 "2008-02-15T04:48:18Z")

</div>

I meet two kinds of redirect: “Location” response and tag.

# Here’s my solution:

require ‘net/http’  
require ‘net/https’

http = Net::HTTP.new(‘[www.microsoft.com](http://www.microsoft.com)’, 80)  
resp, data = http.get(‘/’,nil)

#1.“Location” response redirect…  
if resp.response[‘Location’]!=nil then  
puts 'Direct to: ’ + resp.response[‘Location’]  
redirectUrl=resp.response[‘Location’]  
end

#2. tag redirect…  
redirectUrl=data.scan(/\<META HTTP-EQUIV="REFRESH" CONTENT="0;  
URL=(.\*)"\>/).to\_s  
if redirectUrl!=nil then  
puts 'Direct to: ’ +redirectUrl  
end

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![zeeboo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/z/ec9cab/32.png) [@zeeboo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/zeeboo)\
**Post date:** [February 15, 2008, 7:29am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/net-http-and-handling-302-redirect/129173/3 "2008-02-15T07:29:34Z")

</div>

This is my understanding of how redirects work:

The way it’s supposed to work is that when you request a web page(by  
sending the server a url), and the web page is not at that url, the  
server should send back a response which contains a Location header.  
The Location header’s value is a new url where the web page is located.  
A browser would automatically send out a request to the server for the  
new url. On the other hand, a ruby program has to do that manually: the  
program must extract the Location header, get the url, and then send  
back another request to the server for that url. That’s the way it’s  
supposed to work.

Unfortunately, people who own websites don’t have to follow the rules;  
they can do whatever they want. In particular, they don’t have to  
include a Location header in the response. The same goes for browser  
manufacturers; they aren’t required to sell browsers that conform to the  
standards. Some browser’s are programmed to recognize a Refresh header  
as part of a response–even though a Refresh header doesn’t technically  
exist(according to the standards there is no such header). Therefore,  
it’s possible that a server will send back a response that contains a  
Refresh header instead of a Location header. The Refresh header’s value  
is the new url for the page you are seeking–just like with the Location  
header.

But it gets even worse. Some server side web programmers aren’t able to  
or don’t know how to add headers to the response. As a result, the  
response won’t contain a Refresh header(nor the standards compliant  
Location header) that specifies the new url. To remedy that, the server  
side web programmer has another option: he can arrange to send back a  
skeleton html page that contains a special html tag. The special html  
tag looks like this:

That tells the browser to pretend like there is a Refresh header in the  
response. The new url is specified after the ‘content=’ part. The  
number in front of the url is the number of seconds the browser is  
supposed to wait before sending out a request for that url.

To sum up, when the server wants you to go elsewhere to find the web  
page you requested, the server can send back a response with:

1. A Location header specifying the new url.
2. A Refresh header specifying the new url.
3. An html tag specifying the new url

Of course it would be a lot easier on client side programmers(you), if  
the only option was 1). Instead, you have to check for all three in  
order to find the new url.

> redirectUrl=data.scan(/\<META HTTP-EQUIV=“REFRESH” CONTENT=“0;  
> URL=(.\*)”\>/).to\_s  
> if redirectUrl!=nil then  
> puts 'Direct to: ’ +redirectUrl  
> end

That regex won’t work for any of the following:

1. \<meta http-equiv="refresh" 

content=“2;url=http://webdesign.about.com”\>

1. \<meta http-equiv="refresh" 

content=“2;url=http://webdesign.about.com”\>

1. \<meta http-equiv = "refresh" content = 

“2;url=http://webdesign.about.com”\>’

so make sure you come up with a regex that can handle all of them.

You also might want to check out Mechanize, etc. which automatically  
handles some redirects.

---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![zeeboo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/z/ec9cab/32.png) [@zeeboo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/zeeboo)\
**Post date:** [December 4, 2010, 8:56am UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/net-http-and-handling-302-redirect/129173/4 "2010-12-04T08:56:39Z")

</div>

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---

<div class="post-metadata">

**Author:** ![zeeboo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/letter_avatar_proxy/v4/letter/z/ec9cab/32.png) [@zeeboo](https://www.ruby-forum.com/u/zeeboo)\
**Post date:** [February 15, 2008, 8:35pm UTC](https://www.ruby-forum.com/t/net-http-and-handling-302-redirect/129173/5 "2008-02-15T20:35:25Z")

</div>

On Feb 14, 7:48 pm, Rk Ch [removed\_email\_address@domain.invalid](mailto:removed_email_address@domain.invalid) wrote:

> ## puts 'Direct to: ’ +redirectUrl end
> 
> Posted viahttp://www.ruby-forum.com/.

Looks like #1 is all I have to deal with for this particular site. The  
code definitely got me further, but still in the dark.

— Code response —

postReq object created  
#Net::HTTP::Post:0x2ed8e90posting to new url…  
 ← “POST /main/authorization/signIn HTTP/1.1\r\nAccept: _/_\r\nContent-  
Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded\r\nContent-Length: 2\r\nHost:  
[zbcrazy.ning.com](http://zbcrazy.ning.com)\r\n\r\n”  
 ← c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:174:in `write0': undefined method `dump’ for #\<Net::HTTP::Post POST\> (NoMethodError)  
from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:151:in `write' from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:166:in `writing’  
from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/protocol.rb:150:in `write' from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:1549:in `send\_request\_with\_body’  
from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:1534:in `exec' from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:1057:in `request’  
from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:854:in `post' from BACKUPning_send.rb:62 from c:/ruby/lib/ruby/1.8/net/http.rb:547:in `start’  
from BACKUPning\_send.rb:46

— End Code response —