HeaderValueParser

Parses a header value into elements. Parse errors are indicated as RuntimeException .

Some HTTP headers (such as the set-cookie header) have values that can be decomposed into multiple elements. In order to be processed by this parser, such headers must be in the following form:

         header  = [ element ] *( "," [ element ] )
 element = name [ "=" [ value ] ] *( ";" [ param ] )
 param   = name [ "=" [ value ] ]

 name    = token
 value   = ( token | quoted-string )

 token         = 1*<any char except "=", ",", ";", <"> and
                       white space>
 quoted-string = <"> *( text | quoted-char ) <">
 text          = any char except <">
 quoted-char   = "\" char
        

Any amount of white space is allowed between any part of the header, element or param and is ignored. A missing value in any element or param will be stored as the empty String ; if the "=" is also missing null will be stored instead.

Parses a single header element. A header element consist of a semicolon-separate list of name=value definitions.

Parses a name=value specification, where the = and value are optional.

Parses a list of name-value pairs. These lists are used to specify parameters to a header element. Parse errors are indicated as RuntimeException .

This method comforms to the generic grammar and formatting rules outlined in the Section 2.2 and Section 3.6 of RFC 2616 .

The following rules are used throughout this specification to describe basic parsing constructs. The US-ASCII coded character set is defined by ANSI X3.4-1986.

         OCTET          =
         
          CHAR           =
         
         
          UPALPHA        =
         
         
          LOALPHA        =
         
         
          ALPHA          = UPALPHA | LOALPHA
     DIGIT          =
         
         
          CTL            =
         
         
          CR             =
          
           LF             =
          
          
           SP             =
          
          
           HT             =
          
          
           <">            =
          
          
          
         
        

Many HTTP/1.1 header field values consist of words separated by LWS or special characters. These special characters MUST be in a quoted string to be used within a parameter value (as defined in section 3.6).

          token          = 1*
          
           separators     = "(" | ")" | "<" | ">" | "@"
                | "," | ";" | ":" | "\" | <">
                | "/" | "[" | "]" | "?" | "="
                | "{" | "}" | SP | HT
          
         

A string of text is parsed as a single word if it is quoted using double-quote marks.

         quoted-string  = ( <"> *(qdtext | quoted-pair ) <"> )
 qdtext         =
         
          <">>
         
        

The backslash character ("\") MAY be used as a single-character quoting mechanism only within quoted-string and comment constructs.

         quoted-pair    = "\" CHAR
        

Parameters are in the form of attribute/value pairs.

         parameter               = attribute "=" value
 attribute               = token
 value                   = token | quoted-string