Add Response::text()?

[theduke]

Currently, you can run into a (somewhat) surprising condition when you read the body of a Response twice.

• `resp.read_to_string(&mut s);
• resp.json()

or just

• `resp.read_to_string(&mut s);
• `resp.read_to_string(&mut s);

While to many it will occur quickly that the problem is reading the response twice, I think this can be improved.

.json() already consumes the response, but the Read trait methods do not.

Maybe there could be a body() method which returns a Read and also consumes the response.

[seanmonstar]

The returned Read would have the same "issue", that you can try to read from it multiple times. This is just the design in Rust. For things where you can rewind, there is the Seek trait, and Response doesn't implement it, because you can't rewind.

---

Alternatively, since it seems to be so common to read the body to a string, I wonder if there is value in providing response.string()...

[theduke]

The returned Read would have the same "issue", that you can try to read from it multiple times.

Good point.

[imp]

response.text() would be my choice. In fact that is what I have in requests

[cramertj]

+1 for a .string() or similar.

[jaemk]

I can add this in

[seanmonstar]

I currently have it here in question form as I'd like to hear if it's worth having, or to continue to recommend the io::Read way of read_to_string(&mut s)...

[jaemk]

I see. I think it's worth having since it's probably the most likely case other than deserializing into json. The convenience and the consumption of the response is certainly a plus.

[cramertj]

One argument in favor of adding the method: without this, you have to use std::io::Read;, let mut s = String::new();, and only then can you call read_to_string(&mut s). That's much less convenient than .text().