HTTP GET Request in Node.js Express

Question

How can I make an HTTP request from within Node.js or Express.js? I need to connect to another service. I am hoping the call is asynchronous and that the callback contains the remote server's response.

Answer 1

Use reqclient: not designed for scripting purpose like request or many other libraries. Reqclient allows in the constructor specify many configurations useful when you need to reuse the same configuration again and again: base URL, headers, auth options, logging options, caching, etc. Also has useful features like query and URL parsing, automatic query encoding and JSON parsing, etc.

The best way to use the library is create a module to export the object pointing to the API and the necessary configurations to connect with:

Module client.js:

let RequestClient = require("reqclient").RequestClient

let client = new RequestClient({
  baseUrl: "https://myapp.com/api/v1",
  cache: true,
  auth: {user: "admin", pass: "secret"}
})

module.exports = client

And in the controllers where you need to consume the API use like this:

let client = require('client')
//let router = ...

router.get('/dashboard', (req, res) => {
  // Simple GET with Promise handling to https://myapp.com/api/v1/reports/clients
  client.get("reports/clients")
    .then(response => {
       console.log("Report for client", response.userId)  // REST responses are parsed as JSON objects
       res.render('clients/dashboard', {title: 'Customer Report', report: response})
    })
    .catch(err => {
      console.error("Ups!", err)
      res.status(400).render('error', {error: err})
    })
})

router.get('/orders', (req, res, next) => {
  // GET with query (https://myapp.com/api/v1/orders?state=open&limit=10)
  client.get({"uri": "orders", "query": {"state": "open", "limit": 10}})
    .then(orders => {
      res.render('clients/orders', {title: 'Customer Orders', orders: orders})
    })
    .catch(err => someErrorHandler(req, res, next))
})

router.delete('/orders', (req, res, next) => {
  // DELETE with params (https://myapp.com/api/v1/orders/1234/A987)
  client.delete({
    "uri": "orders/{client}/{id}",
    "params": {"client": "A987", "id": 1234}
  })
  .then(resp => res.status(204))
  .catch(err => someErrorHandler(req, res, next))
})

reqclient supports many features, but it has some that are not supported by other libraries: OAuth2 integration and logger integration with cURL syntax, and always returns native Promise objects.

Answer 2

Here is a snippet of some code from a sample of mine. It's asynchronous and returns a JSON object. It can do any form of GET request.

Note that there are more optimal ways (just a sample) - for example, instead of concatenating the chunks you put into an array and join it etc... Hopefully, it gets you started in the right direction:

const http = require('http');
const https = require('https');

/**
 * getJSON:  RESTful GET request returning JSON object(s)
 * @param options: http options object
 * @param callback: callback to pass the results JSON object(s) back
 */

module.exports.getJSON = (options, onResult) => {
  console.log('rest::getJSON');
  const port = options.port == 443 ? https : http;

  let output = '';

  const req = port.request(options, (res) => {
    console.log(`${options.host} : ${res.statusCode}`);
    res.setEncoding('utf8');

    res.on('data', (chunk) => {
      output += chunk;
    });

    res.on('end', () => {
      let obj = JSON.parse(output);

      onResult(res.statusCode, obj);
    });
  });

  req.on('error', (err) => {
    // res.send('error: ' + err.message);
  });

  req.end();
};

It's called by creating an options object like:

const options = {
  host: 'somesite.com',
  port: 443,
  path: '/some/path',
  method: 'GET',
  headers: {
    'Content-Type': 'application/json'
  }
};

And providing a callback function.

For example, in a service, I require the REST module above and then do this:

rest.getJSON(options, (statusCode, result) => {
  // I could work with the resulting HTML/JSON here. I could also just return it
  console.log(`onResult: (${statusCode})\n\n${JSON.stringify(result)}`);

  res.statusCode = statusCode;

  res.send(result);
});

UPDATE

If you're looking for async/await (linear, no callback), promises, compile time support and intellisense, we created a lightweight HTTP and REST client that fits that bill:

Microsoft typed-rest-client

Answer 3

This version is based on the initially proposed by bryanmac function which uses promises, better error handling, and is rewritten in ES6.

let http = require("http"),
    https = require("https");

/**
 * getJSON:  REST get request returning JSON object(s)
 * @param options: http options object
 */
exports.getJSON = function(options)
{
    console.log('rest::getJSON');
    let reqHandler = +options.port === 443 ? https : http;

    return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
        let req = reqHandler.request(options, (res) =>
        {
            let output = '';
            console.log('rest::', options.host + ':' + res.statusCode);
            res.setEncoding('utf8');

            res.on('data', function (chunk) {
                output += chunk;
            });

            res.on('end', () => {
                try {
                    let obj = JSON.parse(output);
                    // console.log('rest::', obj);
                    resolve({
                        statusCode: res.statusCode,
                        data: obj
                    });
                }
                catch(err) {
                    console.error('rest::end', err);
                    reject(err);
                }
            });
        });

        req.on('error', (err) => {
            console.error('rest::request', err);
            reject(err);
        });

        req.end();
    });
};

As a result you don't have to pass in a callback function, instead getJSON() returns a promise. In the following example the function is used inside of an ExpressJS route handler

router.get('/:id', (req, res, next) => {
    rest.getJSON({
        host: host,
        path: `/posts/${req.params.id}`,
        method: 'GET'
    }).then(({status, data}) => {
        res.json(data);
    }, (error) => {
        next(error);
    });
});

On error it delegates the error to the server error handling middleware.

Answer 4

If you just need to make simple get requests and don't need support for any other HTTP methods take a look at: simple-get:

var get = require('simple-get');

get('http://example.com', function (err, res) {
  if (err) throw err;
  console.log(res.statusCode); // 200
  res.pipe(process.stdout); // `res` is a stream
});

Answer 5

Unirest is the best library I've come across for making HTTP requests from Node. It's aiming at being a multiplatform framework, so learning how it works on Node will serve you well if you need to use an HTTP client on Ruby, PHP, Java, Python, Objective C, .Net or Windows 8 as well. As far as I can tell the unirest libraries are mostly backed by existing HTTP clients (e.g. on Java, the Apache HTTP client, on Node, Mikeal's Request libary) - Unirest just puts a nicer API on top.

Here are a couple of code examples for Node.js:

var unirest = require('unirest')

// GET a resource
unirest.get('http://httpbin.org/get')
  .query({'foo': 'bar'})
  .query({'stack': 'overflow'})
  .end(function(res) {
    if (res.error) {
      console.log('GET error', res.error)
    } else {
      console.log('GET response', res.body)
    }
  })

// POST a form with an attached file
unirest.post('http://httpbin.org/post')
  .field('foo', 'bar')
  .field('stack', 'overflow')
  .attach('myfile', 'examples.js')
  .end(function(res) {
    if (res.error) {
      console.log('POST error', res.error)
    } else {
      console.log('POST response', res.body)
    }
  })

You can jump straight to the Node docs here