Represents an HTTP response generated by a controller action. One can use an ActionController::Response object to retrieve the current state of the response, or customize the response. An Response object can either represent a "real" HTTP response (i.e. one that is meant to be sent back to the web browser) or a test response (i.e. one that is generated from integration tests). See CgiResponse and TestResponse, respectively.

Response is mostly a Ruby on Rails framework implement detail, and should never be used directly in controllers. Controllers should use the methods defined in ActionController::Base instead. For example, if you want to set the HTTP response‘s content MIME type, then use ActionControllerBase#headers instead of Response#headers.

Nevertheless, integration tests may want to inspect controller responses in more detail, and that‘s when Response can be useful for application developers. Integration test methods such as ActionController::Integration::Session#get and ActionController::Integration::Session#post return objects of type TestResponse (which are of course also of type Response).

For example, the following demo integration "test" prints the body of the controller response to the console: 

 class DemoControllerTest < ActionController::IntegrationTest
   def test_print_root_path_to_console
     get('/')
     puts @response.body
   end
 end
Methods
Constants
DEFAULT_HEADERS = { "Cache-Control" => "no-cache" }
Attributes
[RW] assigns
[RW] layout
[RW] redirected_to
[RW] redirected_to_method_params
[RW] request
[RW] session
[RW] template
Public Class methods
new()

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    # File actionpack/lib/action_controller/response.rb, line 42
42:     def initialize
43:       @status = 200
44:       @header = Rack::Utils::HeaderHash.new(DEFAULT_HEADERS)
45: 
46:       @writer = lambda { |x| @body << x }
47:       @block = nil
48: 
49:       @body = "",
50:       @session = []
51:       @assigns = []
52:     end
Public Instance methods
assign_default_content_type_and_charset!()

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     # File actionpack/lib/action_controller/response.rb, line 133
133:     def assign_default_content_type_and_charset!
134:       self.content_type ||= Mime::HTML
135:       self.charset ||= default_charset unless sending_file?
136:     end
charset()

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    # File actionpack/lib/action_controller/response.rb, line 92
92:     def charset
93:       charset = String(headers["Content-Type"] || headers["type"]).split(";")[1]
94:       charset.blank? ? nil : charset.strip.split("=")[1]
95:     end
charset=(charset)

Set the charset of the Content-Type header. Set to nil to remove it. If no content type is set, it defaults to HTML.

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    # File actionpack/lib/action_controller/response.rb, line 83
83:     def charset=(charset)
84:       headers["Content-Type"] =
85:         if charset
86:           "#{content_type || Mime::HTML}; charset=#{charset}"
87:         else
88:           content_type || Mime::HTML.to_s
89:         end
90:     end
content_type()

Returns the response‘s content MIME type, or nil if content type has been set.

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    # File actionpack/lib/action_controller/response.rb, line 76
76:     def content_type
77:       content_type = String(headers["Content-Type"] || headers["type"]).split(";")[0]
78:       content_type.blank? ? nil : content_type
79:     end
content_type=(mime_type)

Sets the HTTP response‘s content MIME type. For example, in the controller you could write this: 

 response.content_type = "text/plain"

If a character set has been defined for this response (see charset=) then the character set information will also be included in the content type information.

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    # File actionpack/lib/action_controller/response.rb, line 66
66:     def content_type=(mime_type)
67:       self.headers["Content-Type"] =
68:         if mime_type =~ /charset/ || (c = charset).nil?
69:           mime_type.to_s
70:         else
71:           "#{mime_type}; charset=#{c}"
72:         end
73:     end
each() {|@body| ...}

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     # File actionpack/lib/action_controller/response.rb, line 147
147:     def each(&callback)
148:       if @body.respond_to?(:call)
149:         @writer = lambda { |x| callback.call(x) }
150:         @body.call(self, self)
151:       elsif @body.respond_to?(:to_str)
152:         yield @body
153:       else
154:         @body.each(&callback)
155:       end
156: 
157:       @writer = callback
158:       @block.call(self) if @block
159:     end
etag()

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     # File actionpack/lib/action_controller/response.rb, line 111
111:     def etag
112:       headers['ETag']
113:     end
etag=(etag)

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     # File actionpack/lib/action_controller/response.rb, line 119
119:     def etag=(etag)
120:       headers['ETag'] = %("#{Digest::MD5.hexdigest(ActiveSupport::Cache.expand_cache_key(etag))}")
121:     end
etag?()

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     # File actionpack/lib/action_controller/response.rb, line 115
115:     def etag?
116:       headers.include?('ETag')
117:     end
last_modified()

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     # File actionpack/lib/action_controller/response.rb, line 97
 97:     def last_modified
 98:       if last = headers['Last-Modified']
 99:         Time.httpdate(last)
100:       end
101:     end
last_modified=(utc_time)

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     # File actionpack/lib/action_controller/response.rb, line 107
107:     def last_modified=(utc_time)
108:       headers['Last-Modified'] = utc_time.httpdate
109:     end
last_modified?()

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     # File actionpack/lib/action_controller/response.rb, line 103
103:     def last_modified?
104:       headers.include?('Last-Modified')
105:     end
location()

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    # File actionpack/lib/action_controller/response.rb, line 54
54:     def location; headers['Location'] end
location=(url)

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    # File actionpack/lib/action_controller/response.rb, line 55
55:     def location=(url) headers['Location'] = url end
prepare!()

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     # File actionpack/lib/action_controller/response.rb, line 138
138:     def prepare!
139:       assign_default_content_type_and_charset!
140:       handle_conditional_get!
141:       set_content_length!
142:       convert_content_type!
143:       convert_language!
144:       convert_cookies!
145:     end
redirect(url, status)

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     # File actionpack/lib/action_controller/response.rb, line 123
123:     def redirect(url, status)
124:       self.status = status
125:       self.location = url.gsub(/[\r\n]/, '')
126:       self.body = "<html><body>You are being <a href=\"#{CGI.escapeHTML(url)}\">redirected</a>.</body></html>"
127:     end
sending_file?()

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     # File actionpack/lib/action_controller/response.rb, line 129
129:     def sending_file?
130:       headers["Content-Transfer-Encoding"] == "binary"
131:     end
set_cookie(key, value)

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     # File actionpack/lib/action_controller/response.rb, line 172
172:     def set_cookie(key, value)
173:       if value.has_key?(:http_only)
174:         ActiveSupport::Deprecation.warn(
175:           "The :http_only option in ActionController::Response#set_cookie " +
176:           "has been renamed. Please use :httponly instead.", caller)
177:         value[:httponly] ||= value.delete(:http_only)
178:       end
179: 
180:       super(key, value)
181:     end
write(str)

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     # File actionpack/lib/action_controller/response.rb, line 161
161:     def write(str)
162:       @writer.call str.to_s
163:       str
164:     end