Nice Fetch

Installation:

npm install nice-fetch

Table of Contents

• What is it
• Motivation
• Usage

What is it

A very simple function (330 bytes gzipped ) that simplifies working with the fetch

Motivation

After writing fetch code hundreds of times, I've decided to simplify the fetch function so instead of this:

try {
  const response = await fetch('https://example.com')
  if (response.ok) {
    const data = await response.json()
  } else {
    throw response
  }
} catch (e) {
  console.log(e)
}

I can do this:

import fetch from 'nice-fetch'

try {
  const [data, response] = await fetch('https://example.com')
} catch (e) {
  console.log(e)
}
// or this

const [data, response] = await fetch('https://example.com').catch((e) =>
  console.log(e)
)

Or if exclusively working with JSON

import { fetchJson } from 'nice-fetch'

try {
  const [data, response] =
    (await fetchJson) <
    { name: string, address: string } >
    'https://example.com'

  console.log(data.name) // correctly typed
} catch (e) {
  console.log(e)
}

A small improvement I know, but it adds up over time :)

Usage

nice-fetch accepts the same arguments as regular fetch with one additional argument which is the type of the body from the response that you expect to be returned, the default value is json. This determines how the response body content should be handled.

// if (response.ok)
const data = await response.json() // <- json is the default
// } else {

Other parameters are all available methods on the Body mixin

for example:

import fetch from 'nice-fetch'

// data is JSON (default)
const [data, response] = await fetch('https://example.com')

// data is JSON
const [data, response] = await fetch(
  'https://example.com',
  { method: 'GET' },
  'json' // <- explicit
)

// data is Blob
const [data, response] = await fetch(
  'https://example.com',
  { method: 'GET' },
  'blob'
)

// data is string
const [data, response] = await fetch(
  'https://example.com',
  undefined // <-- pass undefined for RequestInit
  'text'
)

Return values

The function returns a tuple of data, which is already handled response content (no need for response.json() call) and the original response object.

Error handling

When you write code like this, all errors can be handled in the catch block.

try {
  const [data, response] = await fetch('https://example.com')
} catch (e) {
  console.log(e)
}

In case that the response.ok is not true (status is not in the range 200–299) fetch will throw with the full Response object

In case that the response body content can't be properly handled e.g. invalid JSON, the function will rethrow the error.

In case there is an error from the fetch call itself ( Network request failed, timeout) function will also rethrow that error.