<cfhttp>

Lets you execute HTTP POST and GET operations on files.

Using cfhttp, you can execute standard GET operations and create a query object from a text file.

POST operations lets you upload MIME file types to a server, or post cookie, formfield, URL, file, or CGI variables directly to a specified server.

This tag may have a body.

This tag is also supported within <cfscript>

<cfhttp url=string encodeUrl=boolean compression=string result=string addToken=boolean port=number method=string username=string password=string preAuth=boolean multipart=boolean multiPartType=string getAsBinary=string name=string columns=string path=string file=string delimiter=string textQualifier=string resolveURL=boolean proxyServer=string proxyPort=number proxyUser=string proxyPassword=string userAgent=string throwOnError=boolean redirect=string timeout=any connectionTimeout=any socketTimeout=any charset=string firstRowAsHeaders=boolean authType=string workstation=string domain=string clientCert=string clientCertPassword=string pooling=boolean cachedWithin=object autoCert=boolean ><!--- body --->[</cfhttp>]
Attribute Description
url
string, required

Full URL of the host name or IP address of the server on which the file resides.

The URL must be an absolute URL, including the protocol (http or https) and hostname.

It may optionally contain a port number. Port numbers specified in the url attribute override the port attribute.

encodeUrl
boolean, optional

if set to true (default value) URL encodes the value of the attribute "URL" if necessary (no double encoding is happening).

This setting has no influence on the values from httpparam type="url", for this use the attribute "encoded" from httpparam

Try disabling this (i.e. false) if you are getting strange errors with API requests

Alias: encoded, encode

compression
string, optional

Informs the target webserver to disable compression for the response. Possible values are:

  • true (default): compression enabled
  • false: compression disabled
  • none (deprecated): use "false" instead
result
string, optional

return variable name, default "cfhttp"

addToken
boolean, optional

if yes add urltoken as cookie

port
number, optional

The port number on the server from which the object is requested.

Default is 80.

When used with resolveURL, the URLs of retrieved documents that specify a port number are automatically resolved to preserve links in the retrieved document.

If a port number is specified in the url attribute, the port value overrides the value of the port attribute.

method
string, optional

Supported methods

  • GET: Download content or create queries from text files
  • POST: Send data to server (requires <cfhttpparam>)
  • HEAD: Retrieve headers only, no body content
  • PUT: Upload/replace resource on server
  • DELETE: Remove resource from server
  • OPTIONS: Get allowed methods for resource
  • TRACE: Diagnostic method for request/response chain
  • PATCH: Partially update existing resource

Default is GET.

username
string, optional

When required by a server, a valid username.

password
string, optional

When required by a server, a valid password.

preAuth
boolean, optional

If set to true (default), Lucee sends the basic authentication (username password) always (Preemptive Basic Authentication)

If set to false the authentication is only send when the server ask for it (status code 401).

multipart
boolean, optional

Tells Lucee to send all data specified by cfhttpparam type="formField" tags as multipart form data, with a Content-Type of multipart/form-data.

getAsBinary
string, optional

Controls how response content is handled:

  • false (default): Auto-detect content type - convert to CFML object if not recognized as text
  • auto: Convert unrecognized content to binary data
  • true: Always return content as binary data, even for text responses

Affects the filecontent key in the result struct.

name
string, optional

The name to assign to a query if the a query is constructed from a file.

columns
string, optional

Specifies the column names for a query when creating a query as a result of a cfhttp GET.

path
string, optional

The path to the directory in which a file is to be stored.

If a path is not specified in a POST or GET operation, a variable is created (cfhttp.fileContent) that you can use to display the results of the POST operation in a cfoutput.

file
string, optional

The filename to be used for the file that is accessed.

For GET operations, defaults to the name specified in url.

Enter path information in the path attribute.

delimiter
string, optional

Used only when creating a query from an http request that returns data in a CSV format.

This value specifies the Field delimiter for the CSV data.

Only the first character is used.

Default is a comma.

textQualifier
string, optional

Required for creating a query.

Indicates the start and finish of a column.

Should be appropriately escaped when embedded in a column.

For example, if the qualifier is a double quotation mark, it should be escaped as """".

If there is no text qualifier in the file, specify it as " ".

Default is the double quotation mark (").

resolveURL
boolean, optional

Yes or No.

Default is No.

For GET and POST operations, if Yes, page reference returned into the fileContent internal variable has its internal URLs fully resolved, including port number, so that links remain intact.

proxyServer
string, optional

Host name or IP address of a proxy server.

proxyPort
number, optional

The port number on the proxy server from which the object is requested.

Default is 80.

When used with resolveURL, the URLs of retrieved documents that specify a port number are automatically resolved to preserve links in the retrieved document.

proxyUser
string, optional

When required by a proxy server, a valid username.

proxyPassword
string, optional

When required by a proxy server, a valid password.

userAgent
string, optional

Use a custom User-Agent request header.

throwOnError
boolean, optional

Whether to throw an exception on HTTP errors that can be caught with cftry/cfcatch.

When true: Throws exceptions for connection failures, lookup errors, or non-2xx status codes.

When false (default): Populates the result struct with error information instead.

The result struct always contains an ERROR key indicating if an error occurred, regardless of this setting.

redirect
string, optional

Whether to automatically follow HTTP redirects (3xx status codes).

When true (default): Automatically follows up to 15 redirects.

When false: Stops at the first redirect response. Use cfhttp.responseHeader.LOCATION to see the redirect target.

If redirect limit is exceeded, behaves as if set to false.

If set to "Lax", filecontent for redirects for POST and DELETE requests will be returned, since 7.0.0.208

timeout
any, optional

General timeout value in seconds or as a TimeSpan object that serves as a fallback for connection and socket timeouts.

When connectionTimeout or socketTimeout are not specified, this value is used for those timeouts.

If no timeout is set, Lucee uses the remaining request timeout from the current page context. The request will always timeout at or before the page timeout, using whichever is smaller: the specified timeout or remaining request time.

connectionTimeout
any, optional

Connection establishment timeout in seconds or as a TimeSpan object. Controls how long to wait while establishing the initial TCP connection to the server.

This timeout triggers during the TCP handshake phase, before any HTTP data is sent. Useful when the target server is unreachable, experiencing network issues, or is overwhelmed and not accepting new connections.

If not specified, falls back to the timeout attribute value.

Introduced: 6.2.2.66

socketTimeout
any, optional

Socket read timeout in seconds or as a TimeSpan object. Controls how long to wait for data between consecutive data packets after the connection is established.

This timeout triggers while waiting for the server's response or if the server stops sending data mid-response. Different from connection timeout as it applies to data transfer, not connection establishment.

If not specified, falls back to the timeout attribute value.

Introduced: 6.2.2.66

charset
string, optional

Sets the charset for the call.

firstRowAsHeaders
boolean, optional

sets if first row of csv is file

authType
string, optional

Authentication type for a request with username and password, valid values are "BASIC" (default) and "NTLM"

workstation
string, optional

The workstation the authentication request is originating from.

Essentially, the computer name for this machine. This attribute is only used when authentication type is "NTLM"

domain
string, optional

The domain to authenticate within. This attribute is only used when authentication type is "NTLM"

clientCert
string, optional

The full path to a PKCS12 format file that contains the client certificate for the request.

Introduced: 5.0.0.0

clientCertPassword
string, optional

Password used to decrypt the client certificate.

Introduced: 5.0.0.0

pooling
boolean, optional

Flag allowing to disable connection reuse on one off requests.

Introduced: 6.0.0.96

cachedWithin
object, optional

Supported values are:

  • String "request" (If original content was created within the current request, cached content data is used.)
  • a timespan (created with function CreateTimeSpan)

To use cached data, the tag must be called with the exact same arguments.

Introduced: 5.0.0.0

autoCert
boolean, optional

When set to true, this attribute enables the automatic installation of SSL certificates for HTTPS connections, ensuring the request can proceed without SSL certificate errors. This is particularly useful for environments where certificates may not be pre-installed or are dynamically updated.

Introduced: 6.1.0.132

Unimplemented Attribute(s)

Attribute Description
multiPartType
string, optional

This attribute has been deprecated, use instead the attribute "multipart".

* deprecated *

Usage Notes

For multipart with quoted boundary response, filecontent will be an array, see LDEV-3545

Examples

Tags

<cfhttp url="https://www.google.com" method="get" result="myresult">
<cfdump var="#myresult#">

<cfhttp url="https://www.google.com" method="get" result="myresult"> <cfhttpparam type="url" name="q" value="Lucee"> </cfhttp> <cfdump var="#myresult#">

Script

http url="https://www.google.com" method="get" result="myresult";
dump(myresult);

//You can also pass parameters in script format http url="https://www.google.com/search" method="get" result="myresult"{ httpparam type="url" name="q" value="Lucee"; } dump(myresult);

See also