Currently proxying IPv6 reference URIs is not possible#3705. This is becauseHttpRequestHeader.parseURI first attempts to repair URIs containing unencoded characters by encoding them before callingnew URI withencoded=true. Otherwise new URI would throw a URIException. This includes the[] characters that are part of the IPv6 reference section and sonew URI(http://[::1]/) becomesnew URI(http://%5B::1%5C).

Here I want to avoid having to add parsing of the authority section toHttpRequestHeader while keeping the URI repairing behavior the same. Only callingnew URI withencoded=false gives a different result (for example % becomes %25) and so it is only used to detect IPv6 reference URIs and parse out the host:

• First callnew URI withencoded=false.
• If this was an IPv6 reference then apply repairing to the rest of URI.
• Otherwise repair the whole URI.
• Finally callnew URI withencoded=true.