Headers: Actix Web Documentation

# Headers

Sometimes you need to inspect HTTP headers directly, such as for custom authentication tokens or client metadata. Actix Web provides multiple ways to access headers.

#Using HttpRequest

The most straightforward way is to extract the HttpRequest object, which contains all the headers.

code_blocksrust

use actix_web::{get, HttpRequest, HttpResponse};

#[get("/headers")]
async fn get_headers(req: HttpRequest) -> HttpResponse {
    if let Some(user_agent) = req.headers().get("User-Agent") {
        HttpResponse::Ok().body(format!("You are using: {:?}", user_agent))
    } else {
        HttpResponse::Ok().body("No user agent found")
    }
}

#Typed Headers Extractor (via actix-web-lab)

For stricter typing, you can use typed header extractors provided by extensions or manually parse header values.

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Reference Implementation

The following code snippet demonstrates the authoritative pattern for this documentation.

src/main.rs

Edition 2024

1use actix_web::{get, HttpRequest, App, HttpServer, Responder};
2 
3#[get("/check")]
4async fn check_header(req: HttpRequest) -> impl Responder {
5    match req.headers().get("X-Custom-Token") {
6        Some(val) => format!("Token: {:?}", val),
7        None => "No token provided".to_string(),
8    }
9}
10 
11#[actix_web::main]
12async fn main() -> std::io::Result<()> {
13    HttpServer::new(|| App::new().service(check_header))
14        .bind(("127.0.0.1", 8080))?
15        .run()
16        .await
17}

Headers

#Using HttpRequest

#Typed Headers Extractor (via actix-web-lab)

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Reference Implementation

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