ToolsHttp module

The helpers of HTTP requests: two enumerations that name the request methods and the content types, URL encoding and decoding, and functions that write and read the name=value text of forms and headers. cHttpClient uses the enumerations and four of the functions; a program can call all of them. The module has 8 constants, 2 enumerations and 13 procedures.

Dim Form As New Scripting.Dictionary

Form.Add "user", "ann"
Form.Add "city", "New York"
Debug.Print ToolsHttp.MakeContent(Form)
Debug.Print ToolsHttp.UrlEncode("New York/a&b")
Debug.Print ToolsHttp.MapMethodName(ReqPut)
' Output:
' user=ann&city=New York
' New%20York/a%26b
' PUT

Constants
Enumerations
Functions
See Also

Constants

The eight constants repeat the ones in Consts under shorter names. All are String.

C_CONTENT_TYPE_FORM_MULTIPART

multipart/form-data.

C_CONTENT_TYPE_FORM_URLENCODED

application/x-www-form-urlencoded.

C_CONTENT_TYPE_JSON

application/json.

C_CONTENT_TYPE_STREAM

application/octet-stream.

C_CONTENT_TYPE_TEXT_HTML

text/html.

C_CONTENT_TYPE_TEXT_PLAIN

text/plain.

C_HEADER_FIELD_CONTENT_LENGHT

The text Content-Lenght, a misspelling of Content-Length; see Consts.

C_HEADER_FIELD_CONTENT_TYPE

The text Content-Type.

Enumerations

EnumRequestContentType

The content types that cHttpClient.SetRequestContentType chooses between.

Member	Value	Content type
`JsonString`	1	`application/json`
`FormEncode`	2	`application/x-www-form-urlencoded`
`FormMultiPart`	3	`multipart/form-data`
`TextPlain`	4	`text/plain`
`TextHtml`	5	`text/html`

EnumRequestMethod

The methods of a request, for cHttpClient.Fetch and cHttpClient.Send. The value is the position of the name in the list ANY, POST, GET, PUT, DELETE, OPTIONS that MapMethod and MapMethodName use.

Member	Value	Method
`ReqPost`	1	`POST`
`ReqGet`	2	`GET`
`ReqPut`	3	`PUT`
`ReqDelete`	4	`DELETE`
`ReqOptions`	5	`OPTIONS`

Functions

AddToQueryString

Adds text to the query of a URL.

Syntax: ToolsHttp.AddToQueryString ( Url , QS ) As String

Url: required A String, the address.
QS: required A String, the text to add.

Returns Url followed by ?ver= and QS, or by &ver= and QS when Url already has a ?. The text ver= is always inserted, so QS is the value of a parameter named ver; see the warning at cHttpClient.RequestDataQuery, which calls the function.

Debug.Print ToolsHttp.AddToQueryString("http://host/p", "a=1")
Debug.Print ToolsHttp.AddToQueryString("http://host/p?x=1", "a=1")
' Output:
' http://host/p?ver=a=1
' http://host/p?x=1&ver=a=1

MakeContent

Writes a dictionary as form text.

Syntax: ToolsHttp.MakeContent ( Dic ) As String

Dic: required A Scripting.Dictionary.

Returns the keys and items as key=value pairs joined by &, in the order of the dictionary, or an empty string for an empty dictionary. Nothing is encoded. Compare ToolsDic.FromWwwFormUrlencoded, which does the reverse.

MapMethod

Returns the number of a method name.

Syntax: ToolsHttp.MapMethod ( Name ) As Long

Name is a String. The result is its position in ANY, POST, GET, PUT, DELETE, OPTIONS, counted from 0, which is the value of the matching EnumRequestMethod member (and 0 for ANY). The comparison respects letter case: GET is 2, and get and a name that is not in the list, such as PATCH, are -1.

MapMethodName

Returns the name of a method number.

Syntax: ToolsHttp.MapMethodName ( Index ) As String

Index is a Long, a value of EnumRequestMethod, or 0 for ANY. A number above 5, or below 0, raises error 9.

ParseContent

Reads form text into a dictionary.

Syntax: ToolsHttp.ParseContent ( Content , Obj ) As Boolean

Content: required A String of name=value pairs joined by &.
Obj: required A Scripting.Dictionary. It receives the pairs; an earlier item of the same key is replaced and the other items stay.

Each pair is cut at its first = and both parts are trimmed. A pair without = gets an empty value, and a pair whose name is empty is skipped. The text is not decoded: %20 stays as it is. The function returns False always, whatever it did, because it never assigns its result; read the dictionary instead.

Dim Form As New Scripting.Dictionary

ToolsHttp.ParseContent "a=1&b= two &c&=x&d=1=2", Form
Debug.Print Form.Count
Debug.Print Form.Item("b") & "|" & Form.Item("c") & "|" & Form.Item("d")
' Output:
' 4
' two||1

ParseKeyValue

Reads the headers of an answer into a dictionary.

Syntax: ToolsHttp.ParseKeyValue ( Content , Obj ) As Boolean

Content: required A String of lines separated by vbCrLf, as WinHTTP returns the headers.
Obj: required A Scripting.Dictionary. It receives one item per line.

Each line is cut at its first colon and both parts are trimmed, so the value of a line that has more colons is cut: Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2026 18:00:00 GMT is stored as Tue, 13 Oct 2026 18. A line without a colon becomes an item with the empty text, and an empty line (the last line of a header block is empty) becomes the item with the empty key. Like ParseContent, the function returns False always. cHttpClient calls it to fill ResponseHeaders.

Dim Head As New Scripting.Dictionary

ToolsHttp.ParseKeyValue "Host: example.com" & vbCrLf & "Date: Tue, 13 Oct 2026 18:00:00 GMT" & vbCrLf, Head
Debug.Print Head.Item("Host")
Debug.Print Head.Item("Date")
Debug.Print Head.Count
' Output:
' example.com
' Tue, 13 Oct 2026 18
' 3

UrlDecode

Decodes %XX escapes, assuming the Chinese code page GB2312.

Syntax: ToolsHttp.UrlDecode ( Url ) As String

Url is a String. A %XX below hex 80 becomes the character with that code. A %XX of hex 80 or above is combined with the %XX after it into one double-byte character, and the pair is converted with Chr$. The function does not turn + into a space.

That conversion works only where the ANSI code page is a double-byte one, such as GBK. On a computer with a single-byte code page, such as 1252, any escape of hex 80 or above raises error 5, Invalid procedure call or argument, even a single one such as %E9.

UrlDecodeUtf8

Meant to decode a URL written in UTF-8.

Syntax: ToolsHttp.UrlDecodeUtf8 ( Url ) As String

Note

The function raises error 13, Type mismatch, for every text that contains a %, and returns the text correctly only when it has none (a + becomes a space). The code compares a Long with an empty string at its first %.

UrlEncodUtf8

Meant to encode a text as UTF-8 escapes. The name is spelled with one e less than the function name UrlEncode.

Syntax: ToolsHttp.UrlEncodUtf8 ( szInput ) As String

szInput is a String (a Variant). A character below hex 80 is copied as it is, so a space, & and = stay: only the other characters are escaped. A character from hex 1000 up becomes three escapes, %E4%B8%AD for the character U+4E2D. The function returns an empty string for an empty text.

Warning

A character from hex 80 to hex FFF, such as é, is written with only one %: é becomes %C3A9 and U+0080 becomes %C280. The second byte has no % of its own, so the result is not a valid escape, and no decoder gets the character back. Characters from hex 1000 up, such as the Chinese ones, are right.

Debug.Print ToolsHttp.UrlEncodUtf8("a b")
Debug.Print ToolsHttp.UrlEncodUtf8(ChrW(&H4E2D))
Debug.Print ToolsHttp.UrlEncodUtf8("caf" & ChrW(233))
' Output:
' a b
' %E4%B8%AD
' caf%C3A9

UrlEncode

Encodes a text with %XX escapes in the ANSI code page.

Syntax: ToolsHttp.UrlEncode ( strURL ) As String

strURL is a String, passed by reference. A letter of the English alphabet and the characters -, ,, ., / and 0 to 9 are copied. Every other character becomes % and the hex code of its byte: %20 for a space, %5F for _. A character with two bytes in the code page (a Chinese character in GBK) becomes two escapes. On a computer with a single-byte code page, a character such as é becomes one escape, %E9.

Test

A procedure of the author’s tests: it applies UrlDecodeUtf8 to an escaped path and writes the result to the Debug Console. It raises error 13 for the reason given at UrlDecodeUtf8. A program has no use for it.