net/http: add NoBody, don't return nil from NewRequest on zero bodies

This is an alternate solution to https://golang.org/cl/31445

Instead of making NewRequest return a request with Request.Body == nil
to signal a zero byte body, add a well-known variable that means
explicitly zero.

Too many tests inside Google (and presumably the outside world)
broke.

Change-Id: I78f6ecca8e8aa1e12179c234ccfb6bcf0ee29ba8
Reviewed-on: https://go-review.googlesource.com/31726
Run-TryBot: Brad Fitzpatrick <bradfitz@golang.org>
TryBot-Result: Gobot Gobot <gobot@golang.org>
Reviewed-by: Joe Tsai <thebrokentoaster@gmail.com>

1 files changed, 19 insertions, 0 deletions

diff --git a/src/net/http/http.go b/src/net/http/http.go
index 7e0b77506b..40018453c6 100644
--- a/src/net/http/http.go
+++ b/src/net/http/http.go
@@ -5,6 +5,7 @@
 package http
 
 import (
+	"io"
 	"strconv"
 	"strings"
 	"time"
@@ -81,3 +82,21 @@ func hexEscapeNonASCII(s string) string {
 	}
 	return string(b)
 }
+
+// NoBody is an io.ReadCloser with no bytes. Read always returns EOF
+// and Close always returns nil. It can be used in an outgoing client
+// request to explicitly signal that a request has zero bytes.
+// An alternative, however, is to simply set Request.Body to nil.
+var NoBody = noBody{}
+
+type noBody struct{}
+
+func (noBody) Read([]byte) (int, error)         { return 0, io.EOF }
+func (noBody) Close() error                     { return nil }
+func (noBody) WriteTo(io.Writer) (int64, error) { return 0, nil }
+
+var (
+	// verify that an io.Copy from NoBody won't require a buffer:
+	_ io.WriterTo   = NoBody
+	_ io.ReadCloser = NoBody
+)