diff --git a/actionpack/lib/action_controller/cgi_process.rb b/actionpack/lib/action_controller/cgi_process.rb
index dcfa39fc03..edb7fb38d8 100644
--- a/actionpack/lib/action_controller/cgi_process.rb
+++ b/actionpack/lib/action_controller/cgi_process.rb
@@ -72,7 +72,7 @@ module ActionController #:nodoc:
     end
 
     def request_parameters
-      @request_parameters ||= self.class.parse_formatted_request_parameters(body, content_type_with_parameters, content_length, env)
+      @request_parameters ||= parse_formatted_request_parameters
     end
 
     def cookies
diff --git a/actionpack/lib/action_controller/request.rb b/actionpack/lib/action_controller/request.rb
index 476f65a6dc..cdd35cc17b 100755
--- a/actionpack/lib/action_controller/request.rb
+++ b/actionpack/lib/action_controller/request.rb
@@ -231,11 +231,14 @@ module ActionController
     end
 
 
-    # Receive the raw post data.
-    # This is useful for services such as REST, XMLRPC and SOAP
-    # which communicate over HTTP POST but don't use the traditional parameter format.
+    # Read the request body. This is useful for web services that need to
+    # work with raw requests directly.
     def raw_post
-      @env['RAW_POST_DATA'] ||= body.read
+      unless env.include? 'RAW_POST_DATA'
+        env['RAW_POST_DATA'] = body.read(content_length)
+        body.rewind if body.respond_to?(:rewind)
+      end
+      env['RAW_POST_DATA']
     end
 
     # Returns both GET and POST parameters in a single hash.
@@ -312,37 +315,26 @@ module ActionController
         end
       end
 
-
-    class << self
-      def extract_content_type_without_parameters(content_type_with_parameters)
-        $1.strip.downcase if content_type_with_parameters =~ /^([^,\;]*)/
-      end
-
-      def parse_formatted_request_parameters(body, content_type_with_parameters, content_length, env = {})
-        content_length = content_length.to_i
+      def parse_formatted_request_parameters
         return {} if content_length.zero?
 
-        content_type, boundary = extract_multipart_boundary(content_type_with_parameters.to_s)
+        content_type, boundary = self.class.extract_multipart_boundary(content_type_with_parameters)
         return {} if content_type.blank?
 
         mime_type = Mime::Type.lookup(content_type)
         strategy = ActionController::Base.param_parsers[mime_type]
 
         # Only multipart form parsing expects a stream.
-        if strategy && strategy != :multipart_form
-          data = body.read(content_length)
-          body.rewind if body.respond_to?(:rewind)
-          body = data
-        end
+        body = raw_post if strategy && strategy != :multipart_form
 
         case strategy
           when Proc
             strategy.call(body)
           when :url_encoded_form
-            clean_up_ajax_request_body! body
-            parse_query_parameters(body)
+            self.class.clean_up_ajax_request_body! body
+            self.class.parse_query_parameters(body)
           when :multipart_form
-            parse_multipart_form_parameters(body, boundary, content_length, env)
+            self.class.parse_multipart_form_parameters(body, boundary, content_length, env)
           when :xml_simple, :xml_node
             body.blank? ? {} : Hash.from_xml(body).with_indifferent_access
           when :yaml
@@ -359,6 +351,7 @@ module ActionController
           "backtrace" => e.backtrace }
       end
 
+    class << self
       def parse_query_parameters(query_string)
         return {} if query_string.blank?
 
@@ -402,6 +395,24 @@ module ActionController
         parse_request_parameters(read_multipart(body, boundary, content_length, env))
       end
 
+      def extract_multipart_boundary(content_type_with_parameters)
+        if content_type_with_parameters =~ MULTIPART_BOUNDARY
+          ['multipart/form-data', $1.dup]
+        else
+          extract_content_type_without_parameters(content_type_with_parameters)
+        end
+      end
+
+      def extract_content_type_without_parameters(content_type_with_parameters)
+        $1.strip.downcase if content_type_with_parameters =~ /^([^,\;]*)/
+      end
+
+      def clean_up_ajax_request_body!(body)
+        body.chop! if body[-1] == 0
+        body.gsub!(/&_=$/, '')
+      end
+
+
       private
         def get_typed_value(value)
           case value
@@ -454,20 +465,6 @@ module ActionController
 
         MULTIPART_BOUNDARY = %r|\Amultipart/form-data.*boundary=\"?([^\";,]+)\"?|n
 
-        def extract_multipart_boundary(content_type_with_parameters)
-          if content_type_with_parameters =~ MULTIPART_BOUNDARY
-            ['multipart/form-data', $1.dup]
-          else
-            extract_content_type_without_parameters(content_type_with_parameters)
-          end
-        end
-
-        def clean_up_ajax_request_body!(body)
-          body.chop! if body[-1] == 0
-          body.gsub!(/&_=$/, '')
-        end
-
-
         EOL = "\015\012"
 
         def read_multipart(body, boundary, content_length, env)
diff --git a/actionpack/test/controller/request_test.rb b/actionpack/test/controller/request_test.rb
index 4ec31b389c..4a43091823 100644
--- a/actionpack/test/controller/request_test.rb
+++ b/actionpack/test/controller/request_test.rb
@@ -708,9 +708,7 @@ class MultipartRequestParameterParsingTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
   private
     def process(name)
       File.open(File.join(FIXTURE_PATH, name), 'rb') do |file|
-        content_length = file.stat.size.to_s
-        content_type  = 'multipart/form-data, boundary=AaB03x'
-        ActionController::AbstractRequest.parse_formatted_request_parameters(file, content_type, content_length)
+        ActionController::AbstractRequest.parse_multipart_form_parameters(file, 'AaB03x', file.stat.size, {})
       end
     end
 end
@@ -718,9 +716,7 @@ end
 
 class XmlParamsParsingTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
   def test_single_file
-    body = "<person><name>David</name><avatar type='file' name='me.jpg' content_type='image/jpg'>#{Base64.encode64('ABC')}</avatar></person>"
-
-    person = ActionController::AbstractRequest.parse_formatted_request_parameters(StringIO.new(body), 'application/xml', body.size)
+    person = parse_body("<person><name>David</name><avatar type='file' name='me.jpg' content_type='image/jpg'>#{Base64.encode64('ABC')}</avatar></person>")
 
     assert_equal "image/jpg", person['person']['avatar'].content_type
     assert_equal "me.jpg", person['person']['avatar'].original_filename
@@ -728,7 +724,7 @@ class XmlParamsParsingTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
   end
 
   def test_multiple_files
-    body = <<-end_body
+    person = parse_body(<<-end_body)
       <person>
         <name>David</name>
         <avatars>
@@ -738,8 +734,6 @@ class XmlParamsParsingTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
       </person>
     end_body
 
-    person = ActionController::AbstractRequest.parse_formatted_request_parameters(StringIO.new(body), 'application/xml', body.size)
-
     assert_equal "image/jpg", person['person']['avatars']['avatar'].first.content_type
     assert_equal "me.jpg", person['person']['avatars']['avatar'].first.original_filename
     assert_equal "ABC", person['person']['avatars']['avatar'].first.read
@@ -748,4 +742,12 @@ class XmlParamsParsingTest < Test::Unit::TestCase
     assert_equal "you.gif", person['person']['avatars']['avatar'].last.original_filename
     assert_equal "DEF", person['person']['avatars']['avatar'].last.read
   end
+
+  private
+    def parse_body(body)
+      env = { 'CONTENT_TYPE'   => 'application/xml',
+              'CONTENT_LENGTH' => body.size.to_s }
+      cgi = ActionController::Integration::Session::MockCGI.new(env, body)
+      ActionController::CgiRequest.new(cgi).request_parameters
+    end
 end