The httr package is an R library for making HTTP requests. It provides functions for the main HTTP verbs (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE, PATCH, HEAD) and a generic VERB function for custom verbs. It includes comprehensive support for HTTP configuration (authentication, headers, cookies, proxies, timeouts, etc.) and OAuth 1.0 and 2.0 authentication. Responses are captured in a response object and can be accessed as raw bytes, text, or parsed into common formats (JSON, XML, HTML, etc.). The package also includes utilities for URL parsing and building, media type parsing, HTTP date handling, retry logic with exponential backoff, and HTTP caching. Note: This package is superseded by httr2 for new development, but is still maintained for CRAN compatibility.