restling
v0.9.1
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Restling is a lightweight Node.js module for building promise-based asynchronous HTTP requests.
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Restling
Restling is a lightweight Node.js module for building promise-based asynchronous HTTP requests. Under the hood it uses restler to make HTTP calls and bluebird to transform it in promises.
Avoid callback hell
Working on an asynchronous environment you have probably seen this:
Traditional callback approach
User.logIn("user", "pass", {
success: function(user) {
query.find({
success: function(results) {
results[0].save({ key: value }, {
success: function(result) {
// the object was saved.
}
});
}
});
}
});
With Restling
User.logIn("user", "pass").then(function(user) {
return query.find();
}).then(function(results) {
return results[0].save({ key: value });
}).then(function(result) {
// the object was saved.
});
Installing
npm install restling
Basic Usage
var rest = require('restling');
rest.get('http://google.com').then(function(result){
console.log(result.data);
}, function(error){
console.log(error.message);
});
The result passed into the success callback is an object with two keys:
data
and response
.
Example: {'data': 3, 'response': res}
The error passed into the error callback is an instance of Error with the attributes below:
Example:
{
'message' : 'getaddrinfo ENOTFOUND',
'statusCode': 404,
'response:' : res,
'data' : result.data
}
Parallel Request Basic Usage
Run requests in parallel, without waiting until the previous requests has completed.
To make this we will use a myRequest
object which contains two keys:
url
: Path to make the request.options
: OPTIONAL - Some extra params and settings of the request.
Example of myRequest
object: {'url': 'http://path/to/api', options:{timeout: 5000}}
Passing an object
Each property must be a myRequest
object that will be executed.
The return is a promise with a value that is a object containing each property of the object passed with their respective value.
var rest = require('restling');
var obj = {'google':{'url':'http://google.com'},
'api':{'url':'http://some/rest/api'}}
rest.settleAsync(obj).then(function(result){
// handle result here
// result is {google: responseFromGoogle, api: responseFromApi}
},function(err){
// handle error here
});
Passing an array
It is also possible pass an array of myRequest
object.
THe return is a promise with a value a array which each index contain it respective value in order.
var rest = require('restling');
var array = [{'url':'http://google.com'},
{'url':'http://some/rest/api'}]
rest.settleAsync(array).then(function(result){
// handle results here
// result is [responseFromGoogle, responseFromApi]
},function(err){
// handle error here
});
Using the allAsync
instead settleAsync
If you want to reject the return promise for the whole if one of the parallel request is rejected use allAsync
instead of settleAsync
.
Features
- Easy interface for common operations via http.request
- Automatic serialization of post data
- Automatic serialization of query string data
- Automatic deserialization of XML, JSON and YAML responses to JavaScript objects
- Provide your own deserialization functions for other datatypes
- Automatic following of redirects
- Send files with multipart requests
- Transparently handle SSL (just specify https in the URL)
- Deals with basic auth for you, just provide username and password options
- Simple service wrapper that allows you to easily put together REST API libraries
- Transparently handle content-encoded responses (gzip, deflate)
- Transparently handle different content charsets via iconv-lite
API
request(url, options)
Basic method to make a request of any type. The function returns a promise object:
get(url, options)
Create a GET request.
post(url, options)
Create a POST request.
put(url, options)
Create a PUT request.
del(url, options)
Create a DELETE request.
head(url, options)
Create a HEAD request.
patch(url, options)
Create a PATCH request.
json(url, data, options)
Send json data
via GET method.
postJson(url, data, options)
Send json data
via POST method.
putJson(url, data, options)
Send json data
via PUT method.
settleAsync(requestObjects, callback)
Run the requestObjects
array/object in parallel, without waiting until the previous request has completed.
Parsers
You can give any of these to the parsers option to specify how the response data is deserialized.
In case of malformed content, parsers emit error
event. Original data returned by server is stored in response.raw
.
parsers.auto
Checks the content-type and then uses parsers.xml, parsers.json or parsers.yaml. If the content type isn't recognised it just returns the data untouched.
parsers.json, parsers.xml, parsers.yaml
All of these attempt to turn the response into a JavaScript object. In order to use the YAML and XML parsers you must have yaml and/or xml2js installed.
Options
method
Request method, can be get, post, put, delete. Defaults to"get"
.query
Query string variables as a javascript object, will override the querystring in the URL. Defaults to empty.data
The data to be added to the body of the request. Can be a string or any object. Note that if you want your request body to be JSON with theContent-Type: application/json
, you need toJSON.stringify
your object first. Otherwise, it will be sent asapplication/x-www-form-urlencoded
and encoded accordingly. Also you can usejson()
andpostJson()
methods.parser
A function that will be called on the returned data.encoding
The encoding of the request body. Defaults to"utf8"
.decoding
The encoding of the response body. For a list of supported values see Buffers. Additionally accepts"buffer"
- returns response asBuffer
. Defaults to"utf8"
.headers
A hash of HTTP headers to be sent. Defaults to{ 'Accept': '*/*', 'User-Agent': 'Restling for node.js' }
.username
Basic auth username. Defaults to empty.password
Basic auth password. Defaults to empty.accessToken
OAuth Bearer Token. Defaults to empty.multipart
If set the data passed will be formated asmultipart/form-encoded
. See multipart example below. Defaults tofalse
.client
A http.Client instance if you want to reuse or implement some kind of connection pooling. Defaults to empty.followRedirects
If set will recursively follow redirects. Defaults totrue
.timeout
If set, will emit the timeout event when the response does not return within the said value (in ms)rejectUnauthorized
If true, the server certificate is verified against the list of supplied CAs. An 'error' event is emitted if verification fails. Verification happens at the connection level, before the HTTP request is sent. Default true.
Example usage
var rest = require('./restling');
var successCallback = function(result){
console.log('Data: ' + result.data);
console.log('Response: ' + result.response);
};
var errorCallback = function(error){
console.log('Error: ' + error.message);
if (error.response) {
console.log('Response: ' + error.response);
}
};
rest.get('http://google.com').then(successCallback, errorCallback);
// auto convert json to object
rest.get('http://twaud.io/api/v1/users/danwrong.json')
.then(successCallback, errorCallback);
// auto convert xml to object
rest.get('http://twaud.io/api/v1/users/danwrong.xml')
.then(successCallback, errorCallback);
rest.get('http://someslowdomain.com',{timeout: 10000})
.then(successCallback, errorCallback);
rest.post('http://user:[email protected]/action', {
data: { id: 334 },
}).then(function(result) {
if (result.response.statusCode == 201) {
result.data;// you can get at the raw response like this...
}
},
errorCallback);
// multipart request sending a 321567 byte long file using https
rest.post('https://twaud.io/api/v1/upload.json', {
multipart: true,
username: 'danwrong',
password: 'wouldntyouliketoknow',
data: {
'sound[message]': 'hello from restling!',
'sound[file]': rest.file('doug-e-fresh_the-show.mp3', null, 321567, null, 'audio/mpeg')
}
}).then(successCallback, errorCallback);
// post JSON
var jsonData = { id: 334 };
rest.postJson('http://example.com/action', jsonData).then(successCallback, errorCallback);
// put JSON
var jsonData = { id: 334 };
rest.putJson('http://example.com/action', jsonData).then(successCallback, errorCallback);
TODO
- What do you need? Let me know or fork.