/*
 * Copyright 2002-2010 the original author or authors.
 *
 * Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0 (the "License");
 * you may not use this file except in compliance with the License.
 * You may obtain a copy of the License at
 *
 *      http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0
 *
 * Unless required by applicable law or agreed to in writing, software
 * distributed under the License is distributed on an "AS IS" BASIS,
 * WITHOUT WARRANTIES OR CONDITIONS OF ANY KIND, either express or implied.
 * See the License for the specific language governing permissions and
 * limitations under the License.
 */

package org.springframework.http.client;

import java.io.IOException;
import java.net.URI;

import org.springframework.http.HttpMethod;
import org.springframework.http.HttpOutputMessage;

/**
 * Represents a client-side HTTP request. Created via an implementation of the {@link ClientHttpRequestFactory}.
 *
 * <p>A <code>HttpRequest</code> can be {@linkplain #execute() executed}, getting a {@link ClientHttpResponse}
 * which can be read from.
 *
 * @author Arjen Poutsma
 * @since 3.0
 * @see ClientHttpRequestFactory#createRequest(java.net.URI, HttpMethod)
 */
public interface ClientHttpRequest extends HttpOutputMessage {

	/**
	 * Return the HTTP method of the request.
	 * @return the HTTP method as an HttpMethod enum value
	 */
	HttpMethod getMethod();

	/**
	 * Return the URI of the request.
	 * @return the URI of the request
	 */
	URI getURI();

	/**
	 * Execute this request, resulting in a {@link ClientHttpResponse} that can be read.
	 * @return the response result of the execution
	 * @throws IOException in case of I/O errors
	 */
	ClientHttpResponse execute() throws IOException;

}
