HTTP Client

Create an HTTP request scratch file

• Press Ctrl+Alt+Shift+Insert and select HTTP Request.

Create a physical HTTP request file

• In the File menu, point to New, and then click HTTP Request.

Move an HTTP request

You can use the Move refactoring F6 to move HTTP requests from scratches to physical files, as well as between physical files.

1. In the editor, position the caret at the request to be moved and do one of the following:

   • From the main menu or the context menu, select Refactor | Move.

   • Press Alt+Enter and select the Move HTTP Requests intention action.

   • Press F6.

2. In the Move HTTP Requests dialog that opens, do the following:

   1. In the Path field, choose one of the existing .http files from the list or click to locate the file.

      You can also type the full path to the file manually. If you specify the name of a non-existing file, a new file with the provided name will be created automatically.

   2. In the Requests list, select the checkboxes next to the requests you want to move.

Open a request from the HTTP Requests Collection

1. Click the Examples shortcut link on top of the request's editor panel.

2. In the popup menu, choose the HTTP Requests collection you wish to open:

   

1. If you are going to test your own web service, make sure it is deployed and running.

2. If you have environments defined, select an environment in the Run with list on top of the request's editor panel.

3. In the gutter, click next to the request.

If you have multiple HTTP requests defined in an .http file, you can run all of them sequentially. To do this, click on top of the request's editor panel.

Open a request in the browser

You can open an HTTP request in the browser specified on the Web Browsers and Preview page of the Settings dialog (Ctrl+Alt+S).

• Press Alt+Enter and select the Open in web browser intention action.

View a received response

1. Switch to the Services tool window, which opens automatically as soon as a response is received.

2. By default, the server response is shown in the format specified in the request header via the content-type field. To have the response converted into another format, click and select Text, JSON, XML, or HTML.

   

If the response contains a binary file, this file is also saved under the .idea/httpRequests/ directory. If the response is an image, you can see its preview in the Services tool window.

If you have a response handler script, the results of the tests executed as part of this script are displayed on the Tests tab of the Services tool window. You can click each of the tests to quickly navigate to the test source code in the corresponding response handler script.

If you subscribe to an event stream, CLion displays events in the Services tool window. Here, you can also view the status of the client-server connection and terminate it by clicking . Depending on the content type (either text/event-stream or application/x-ndjson), the response will be formatted as plain text or newline-delimited JSON. You can write a response handler script to process each line of the event stream.

Redirecting stream events to a file is currently not supported.

Open a response file in the editor

1. Position the caret at the link to the response you want to open.

2. Choose View | Jump to Source from the main menu, or press Ctrl+B or F4

Alternatively, you can Ctrl+Click the response line:

Compare responses in a scratch file

When a request is executed from a scratch file, the link to the response output file is added below the original request.

• Do any of the following:

  • Position the caret at the link to the response file. Press Alt+Enter and select the Compare with <response name> intention action.

  • Click in the gutter and select Compare with <response name> from the list:

    

Compare responses in the request history

When a request is executed from a physical file, the link to the response output is added to the requests history.

1. Position the caret at the link to the response file. Choose View | Jump to Source from the main menu, or press Ctrl+B or F4 to open this file in a new editor tab.

2. Choose View | Compare With from the main menu, or press Ctrl+D. CLion will prompt you to open a response file from the httpRequests folder.

3. Select the response file you would like to compare the current file with and click Open.

The two response files will be opened in the Differences viewer allowing you to compare their contents:

Open request history

• Click on top of the request's editor panel.

• Select Tools | HTTP Client | Show HTTP Requests History from the main menu.

Redirect output to a custom file or directory

• The HTTP Client can redirect output to a custom file or directory. It supports two operators for force and soft redirects:

  • The >> operator always creates a new file, adding an -n suffix to a filename if the requested filename already exists.

  • The >>! operator rewrites the file if it already exists.

Send multiple messages

• Use the === separator to send multiple messages:

  { "message": "First message sent on connection" } === // message separator { "message": "Second message" } === { "message": "Third message" }

Send messages after the server response

• Before a message, enter === wait-for-server.

  This will make the HTTP Client wait for the server response before sending the message. You can wait for multiple responses by repeating the === wait-for-server line. For example, the following message will be sent after 3 server responses:

  === wait-for-server === wait-for-server === wait-for-server { "message": "This messages is sent after 3 server responses" }

Send messages interactively

Once you have initiated a connection, you can interact with your server right from the Services tool window. You can send messages and view server responses to each new message.

1. In the Services tool window, select an opened connection.

2. In the lower part of the window, under Message to be sent to WebSocket, enter the message content.

3. To the right of it, select the message format: plain text, JSON, XML, or HTML.

4. Press Ctrl+Enter to send the request.

In the upper part of the window, you'll see the server response.

Compose an HTTP request with GraphQL query

1. In an .http file, enter the GRAPHQL keyword followed by a server address.

2. In the request body, compose your GraphQL operation (query, mutation, or subscription), for example:

   ### HTTP request with GraphQL query GRAPHQL http://localhost:8080/graphql query { toDos { title, completed, author { username } } }

To speed up composing an HTTP request with a GraphQL query, you can:

• Click on top of the editor panel of an .http file and select GraphQL Query Request.

• In an .http file, type gqlr and press Enter to apply the GraphQL live template.

Use GraphQL variables

In the HTTP request body, you can use GraphQL variables if you want to pass some dynamic data separately from the query string.

• After the query part, enter a JSON variables dictionary:

  query ($name: String!, $capital: String!) { country(name: $name, capital: $capital) { name capital } } { "name": "France", "capital": "Paris" }

  You can also use HTTP Client environment variables as GraphQL variable values. For example, in this JSON, "{{Author}}" is an environment variable; its value at runtime depends on the environment that you select while sending the request:

  { "author": "{{Author}}" }

1. In the Settings dialog (Ctrl+Alt+S), choose System Settings under Appearance & Behavior, then choose HTTP Proxy.

2. In the HTTP Proxy dialog that opens, select Manual proxy configuration and specify the following:

   • Enter the proxy host name and port number in the Host name and Port number fields.

   • To enable authorization, select the Proxy authentication checkbox and type the username and password in the corresponding fields.

Specify path to certificate

1. In an .http file, in the Run with list, select Add Environment to Private File….

2. In the http-client.private.env.json file that opens, add the SSLConfiguration object to the needed environment. In clientCertificate, enter a path to your client certificate. If a certificate key is stored in a separate file, enter its path in clientCertificateKey. For example:

   { "dev": { "MyVar": "SomeValue", "SSLConfiguration": { "clientCertificate": "cert.pem", "clientCertificateKey": "MyFolder/key.pem" } } }

   Alternatively, you can describe clientCertificate and clientCertificateKey as objects, which lets you specify the certificate format in addition to the path. For example:

   { "dev": { "SSLConfiguration": { "clientCertificate": { "path": "file.crt", "format": "PEM" }, "clientCertificateKey": { "path": "file.key", "format": "DER" } } } }

Set up a certificate passphrase

If you used a passphrase when generating your client certificate, you should provide it to the HTTP Client.

1. In the http-client.private.env.json file, add "hasCertificatePassphrase": true to the SSLConfiguration object, for example:

   { "dev": { "SSLConfiguration": { "clientCertificate": "file.crt", "hasCertificatePassphrase": true } } }

2. Click in the gutter or, with the caret placed at hasCertificatePassphrase, press Alt+Enter and select Set value for 'Certificate passphrase'.

3. In the window that opens, enter your certificate passphrase.

You can omit the second step if you do not want to enter the passphrase now. In this case, CLion will prompt you to enter the passphrase when you execute an HTTPS request.

Disable certificate verification

For development purposes, you may have a host with self-signed or expired certificates. If you trust this host, you can disable verification of its certificate.

• In the http-client.private.env.json file, add verifyHostCertificate": false to the SSLConfiguration object. For example:

  { "sslTest": { "SSLConfiguration": { "verifyHostCertificate": false } } }

If you run a request with this environment, CLion will not verify host certificates.