Cookbooks
Haskell
Chapter 11. HTML and the Web
Sending an HTTP request with basic authentication

Haskell:
Sending an HTTP request with basic authentication

How to:

You’ll need the http-conduit package for HTTP actions and base64-bytestring for encoding credentials. Import them and use applyBasicAuth to add credentials to your request.

import Network.HTTP.Simple
import Data.ByteString.Char8 (pack)
import Data.ByteString.Base64 (encode)

-- Construct basic auth header
let username = "user"
let password = "pass"
let auth = encode $ pack (username ++ ":" ++ password)

-- Create your request
request' = parseRequest_ "GET http://example.com/secret"
let request = setRequestHeader "Authorization" ["Basic " <> auth] request'

-- Perform the request
response <- httpLBS request

-- Handle the response
print $ getResponseBody response

This will output the API response, if your credentials check out.

Deep Dive

Basic auth is ancient in web years, designed in the early ’90s, and it’s as simple as it gets: base64 encoded username:password sent in a header. It lacks fancy features like token expiration and, being unencrypted, should always be used over HTTPS.

Alternatives like OAuth provide more secure, granular control. For Haskell, libraries like http-client and wreq give you more options and flexibility.

Implementation-wise, remember not to hardcode credentials! Use environment variables or a secure vault in production. And since base64 encoding isn’t encryption (anyone can decode it), HTTPS isn’t just a good idea, it’s a must.

See Also

Sending an HTTP request