Make HEAD, GET, and POST requests with default headers and parse the response

request-service sends GET, POST, PUT, and HEAD request with some automations:

• sets default Content-Type header depending on the data type
• sets the Content-Length header
• parses the received data depending on the incoming headers to JSON, Buffer, or a string.
• provides the Request / Response properties in the callback

Homepage: https://github.com/popovmp/request-service#readme

Synopsis

Make a HEAD request

const request = require('@popovmp/request-service');

request.head('https://example.com', {}, (err, data, prop) => {
    console.log( prop.statusCode === 200
        ? 'The server is online!'
        : 'The server is down...' );
});

Make a GET request

const url     = 'https://example.com/get?foo=bar';
const headers = {'Username': 'John Doe'};

request.get(url, headers, callback);

Make a POST request

const url     = 'https://example.com/post?foo=bar';
const data    = {answer: 42}; // Can be anything
const headers = {'Username': 'John Doe'};

request.post(url, data, headers, callback);

POST form request with a Content-Type: x-www-form-urlencoded header

Note - form-urlencoded queries do not contain arrays. If your query object has an array, the corresponding field will be ignored in the request.

const url     = 'https://example.com/form';
const form    = {name: 'John Doe', email: '[email protected]'};
const headers = {};

request.form(url, form, headers, callback);

POST json request with a Content-Type: application/json header

const url     = 'https://example.com/api';
const object  = {answer: 42, numbers: [1, 2, 3, 4]};
const headers = {};

request.json(url, object, headers, callback);

The request-service accepts equal callback for both GET and POST requests.

function callback(err, data, prop) {
    if (err) {
        console.error('Error: ' + err);
    }

    console.log(data);

    console.log( JSON.stringify(prop, null, 2) );
}

Installation

npm install @popovmp/request-service

Usage

request-service is a "http"/"https" client. It sends requests and manages the responses. It also tries to set a proper 'Content-Type' headers for the request and to parse the response body.

Yuo can use it in two ways:

const request = require('@popovmp/request-service');

request.form(url, data, headers, callback);

or you can use convenient method aliases:

const { requestHead, requestGet, requestPost, requestForm, requestJson } = require('@popovmp/request-service');

Default Content-Type header

If, you do not provide a Content-Type header, request-service sets a default Content-Type header for the POST requests depending on the data type.

• null => ''
• Buffer => Content-Type: application/octet-stream
• Object => Content-Type: application/json
• String => Content-Type: text/plain
• Any => Content-Type: text/plain

Callback data

request-service call the given callback when the request is ready.

// Request callback
function request_ready(err, data, prop) { }

In case of an error, the callback receives the error message and the Request properties.

When there is no error, it is called with null and data. The data can be Buffer, Object, string or null.

request-service parses the response data according to the response's content-type as follows:

• Content-Type: application/octet-stream => data
• Content-Type: application/json => JSON.parse( data.toString() )
• Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded => queryString.parse( data.toString() )
• other => data.toString()

The Request properties is an object with properties from the outgoing request and incoming response.

An example of Request properties:

{
  "aborted": false,
  "complete": true,
  "headers": {
    "date"          : "Sat, 29 Aug 2020 06:41:37 GMT",
    "content-type"  : "application/json",
    "content-length": "283",
    "connection"    : "close",
    "server"        : "gunicorn/19.9.0",
    "access-control-allow-origin"     : "*",
    "access-control-allow-credentials": "true"
  },
  "host"         : "httpbin.org",
  "httpVersion"  : "1.1",
  "method"       : "GET",
  "outputSize"   : 0,
  "path"         : "/get?foo=bar",
  "protocol"     : "https:",
  "statusCode"   : 200,
  "statusMessage": "OK"
}

Methods

request-service exports the following methods: head, get, post, form, and json.

/**
 * Sends a HEAD request.
 *
 * @param { string              } url
 * @param { OutgoingHttpHeaders } headers
 * @param { ResponseCallback    } callback
 */
function head(url, headers, callback) { }

/**
 * Sends a GET request.
 *
 * @param {string} url
 * @param {OutgoingHttpHeaders} headers
 * @param {ResponseCallback} callback
 */
function get(url, headers, callback) { }

/**
 * Sends a POST request.
 *
 * @param {string} url
 * @param {any} data
 * @param {OutgoingHttpHeaders} headers
 * @param {ResponseCallback} callback
 */
function post(url, data, headers, callback) { }

/**
 * Sends a PUT request.
 *
 * @param {string} url
 * @param {any} data
 * @param {OutgoingHttpHeaders} headers
 * @param {ResponseCallback} callback
 */
function put(url, data, headers, callback) { }

/**
 * Sends a POST request with 'Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded'.
 *
 * @param { string              } url
 * @param { object              } data - values can be object, string, numbers or arrays.
 * @param { OutgoingHttpHeaders } headers
 * @param { ResponseCallback    } callback
 */
function form(url, data, headers, callback) { }

/**
 * Sends a POST request with 'Content-Type: application/json'.
 *
 * @param { string              } url
 * @param { object              } data
 * @param { OutgoingHttpHeaders } headers
 * @param { ResponseCallback    } callback
 */
function json(url, data, headers, callback) { }

Where:

/**
 * @typedef { function } ResponseCallback
 *
 * @param { null | string } error
 * @param { Buffer | Object | string | null } data
 * @param { RequestProperties } prop
 */
function request_ready(err, data, prop) { }

License

request-service is free for use and modification. No responsibilities for damages of any kind.

Copyright (c) 2022 Miroslav Popov