Request

The Request object is passed into every route handler.

app.get("hello", ":name") { req -> String in
    let name = req.parameters.get("name")!
    return "Hello, \(name)!"
}

It is the main window into the rest of Vapor's functionality. It contains APIs for the request body, query parameters, logger, HTTP client, Authenticator, and more. Accessing this functionality through the request keeps computation on the correct event loop and allows it to be mocked for testing. You can even add your own services to the Request with extensions.

The full API documentation for Request can be found here.

Application

The Request.application property holds a reference to the Application. This object contains all of the configuration and core functionality for the application. Most of it should only be set in configure.swift, before the application fully starts, and many of the lower level APIs won't be needed in most applications. One of the most useful properties is Application.eventLoopGroup, which can be used to get an EventLoop for processes that need a new one via the any() method. It also contains the Environment.

Body

If you want direct access to the request body as a ByteBuffer, you can use Request.body.data. This can be used for streaming data from the request body to a file (though you should use the fileio property on the request for this instead) or to another HTTP client.

Cookies

While the most useful application of cookies is via built-in sessions, you can also access cookies directly via Request.cookies.

app.get("my-cookie") { req -> String in
    guard let cookie = req.cookies["my-cookie"] else {
        throw Abort(.badRequest)
    }
    if let expiration = cookie.expires, expiration < Date() {
        throw Abort(.badRequest)
    }
    return cookie.string
}

Headers

An HTTPHeaders object can be accessed at Request.headers. This contains all of the headers sent with the request. It can be used to access the Content-Type header, for example.

app.get("json") { req -> String in
    guard let contentType = req.headers.contentType, contentType == .json else {
        throw Abort(.badRequest)
    }
    return "JSON"
}

See further documentation for HTTPHeaders here. Vapor also adds several extensions to HTTPHeaders to make working with the most commonly-used headers easier; a list is available here

IP Address

The SocketAddress representing the client can be accessed via Request.remoteAddress, which may be useful for logging or rate limiting using the string representation Request.remoteAddress.ipAddress. It may not accurately represent the client's IP address if the application is behind a reverse proxy.

app.get("ip") { req -> String in
    return req.remoteAddress.ipAddress
}

See further documentation for SocketAddress here.