@tinyhttp/accepts

What is @tinyhttp/accepts?

@tinyhttp/accepts is a package for handling HTTP content negotiation in Node.js applications. It helps in determining the best content type, language, encoding, and charset to respond with based on the client's request headers.

What are @tinyhttp/accepts's main functionalities?

Content Type Negotiation

This feature allows you to determine the best content type to respond with based on the client's Accept header. The code sample demonstrates how to respond with HTML, JSON, or plain text depending on what the client prefers.

const accepts = require('@tinyhttp/accepts');
const http = require('http');

http.createServer((req, res) => {
  const accept = accepts(req);
  const type = accept.type(['html', 'json', 'text']);

  if (type === 'html') {
    res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'text/html');
    res.end('<p>Hello, world!</p>');
  } else if (type === 'json') {
    res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'application/json');
    res.end(JSON.stringify({ message: 'Hello, world!' }));
  } else {
    res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'text/plain');
    res.end('Hello, world!');
  }
}).listen(3000);

Language Negotiation

This feature allows you to determine the best language to respond with based on the client's Accept-Language header. The code sample demonstrates how to respond in English, Spanish, or French depending on the client's preference.

const accepts = require('@tinyhttp/accepts');
const http = require('http');

http.createServer((req, res) => {
  const accept = accepts(req);
  const lang = accept.language(['en', 'es', 'fr']);

  if (lang === 'en') {
    res.end('Hello, world!');
  } else if (lang === 'es') {
    res.end('¡Hola, mundo!');
  } else if (lang === 'fr') {
    res.end('Bonjour, le monde!');
  } else {
    res.end('Hello, world!');
  }
}).listen(3000);

Encoding Negotiation

This feature allows you to determine the best encoding to respond with based on the client's Accept-Encoding header. The code sample demonstrates how to respond with gzip, deflate, or plain content depending on the client's preference.

const accepts = require('@tinyhttp/accepts');
const http = require('http');

http.createServer((req, res) => {
  const accept = accepts(req);
  const encoding = accept.encoding(['gzip', 'deflate', 'identity']);

  if (encoding === 'gzip') {
    res.setHeader('Content-Encoding', 'gzip');
    res.end('gzipped content');
  } else if (encoding === 'deflate') {
    res.setHeader('Content-Encoding', 'deflate');
    res.end('deflated content');
  } else {
    res.end('plain content');
  }
}).listen(3000);

Charset Negotiation

This feature allows you to determine the best charset to respond with based on the client's Accept-Charset header. The code sample demonstrates how to respond with utf-8, iso-8859-1, or windows-1252 charset depending on the client's preference.

const accepts = require('@tinyhttp/accepts');
const http = require('http');

http.createServer((req, res) => {
  const accept = accepts(req);
  const charset = accept.charset(['utf-8', 'iso-8859-1', 'windows-1252']);

  if (charset === 'utf-8') {
    res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'text/plain; charset=utf-8');
    res.end('Hello, world!');
  } else if (charset === 'iso-8859-1') {
    res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'text/plain; charset=iso-8859-1');
    res.end('Hello, world!');
  } else if (charset === 'windows-1252') {
    res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'text/plain; charset=windows-1252');
    res.end('Hello, world!');
  } else {
    res.end('Hello, world!');
  }
}).listen(3000);

Other packages similar to @tinyhttp/accepts

accepts

The 'accepts' package is a content negotiation library for Node.js. It provides similar functionalities to @tinyhttp/accepts, such as determining the best content type, language, encoding, and charset to respond with based on the client's request headers. It is widely used and well-documented.

negotiator

The 'negotiator' package is another content negotiation library for Node.js. It provides similar functionalities to @tinyhttp/accepts, including content type, language, encoding, and charset negotiation. It is a lower-level library compared to 'accepts' and offers more granular control over the negotiation process.

README

@tinyhttp/accepts

accepts rewrite in TypeScript.

Higher level content negotiation based on negotiator. Extracted from koa for general use.

In addition to negotiator, it allows:

• Allows types as an array or arguments list, ie (['text/html', 'application/json']) as well as ('text/html', 'application/json').
• Allows type shorthands such as json.
• Returns false when no types match
• Treats non-existent headers as *

Install

pnpm i @tinyhttp/accepts

API

import { Accepts } from '@tinyhttp/accepts'

accepts(req)

Create a new Accepts object for the given req.

.charset(charsets)

Return the first accepted charset. If nothing in charsets is accepted, then false is returned.

.charsets()

Return the charsets that the request accepts, in the order of the client's preference (most preferred first).

.encoding(encodings)

Return the first accepted encoding. If nothing in encodings is accepted, then false is returned.

.encodings()

Return the encodings that the request accepts, in the order of the client's preference (most preferred first).

.language(languages)

Return the first accepted language. If nothing in languages is accepted, then false is returned.

.languages()

Return the languages that the request accepts, in the order of the client's preference (most preferred first).

.type(types)

Return the first accepted type (and it is returned as the same text as what appears in the types array). If nothing in types is accepted, then false is returned.

The types array can contain full MIME types or file extensions. Any value that is not a full MIME types is passed to require('mime-types').lookup.

.types()

Return the types that the request accepts, in the order of the client's preference (most preferred first).

Example

This simple example shows how to use accepts to return a different typed respond body based on what the client wants to accept. The server lists it's preferences in order and will get back the best match between the client and server.

import Accepts from '@tinyhttp/accepts'
import { createServer } from 'node:http'

createServer((req, res) => {
  const accept = new Accepts(req)

  // the order of this list is significant; should be server preferred order
  switch (accept.type(['json', 'html'])) {
    case 'json':
      res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'application/json')
      res.write('{"hello":"world!"}')
      break
    case 'html':
      res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'text/html')
      res.write('<b>hello, world!</b>')
      break
    default:
      // the fallback is text/plain, so no need to specify it above
      res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'text/plain')
      res.write('hello, world!')
      break
  }

  res.end()
}).listen(3000)

You can test this out with the cURL program:

curl -I -H 'Accept: text/html' http://localhost:3000/