Socket
Socket
Sign inDemoInstall

follow-redirects

Package Overview
Dependencies
0
Maintainers
2
Versions
65
Alerts
File Explorer

Advanced tools

Install Socket

Detect and block malicious and high-risk dependencies

Install

follow-redirects

HTTP and HTTPS modules that follow redirects.


Version published
Maintainers
2
Weekly downloads
39,479,407
decreased by-8.95%

Weekly downloads

Package description

What is follow-redirects?

The follow-redirects npm package is a drop-in replacement for Node.js' native http and https modules that automatically follows HTTP(S) redirects. It provides an easy way to make HTTP(S) requests without having to manually handle redirection logic.

What are follow-redirects's main functionalities?

HTTP/HTTPS request with automatic redirection

This code demonstrates how to make a simple HTTP GET request that automatically follows redirects using the follow-redirects package.

const http = require('follow-redirects').http;

http.get('http://example.com', (response) => {
  response.on('data', (chunk) => {
    console.log(chunk.toString());
  });
}).on('error', (err) => {
  console.error(err);
});

Customizing redirect options

This code snippet shows how to customize the behavior of follow-redirects by setting the maximum number of redirects to follow and adding a hook to log the URL before redirecting.

const https = require('follow-redirects').https;

const options = {
  maxRedirects: 10,
  beforeRedirect: (options, { headers }) => {
    console.log(`Redirecting to: ${options.hostname}${options.path}`);
  }
};

https.get('https://example.com', options, (response) => {
  // Handle response
}).on('error', (err) => {
  console.error(err);
});

Streaming response data

This example demonstrates how to stream data from an HTTP GET request to a file, which is useful for downloading files while following redirects.

const http = require('follow-redirects').http;
const fs = require('fs');

const file = fs.createWriteStream('downloaded_file.txt');

http.get('http://example.com/file', (response) => {
  response.pipe(file);
}).on('error', (err) => {
  console.error(err);
});

Other packages similar to follow-redirects

Readme

Source

Follow Redirects

Drop-in replacement for Node's http and https modules that automatically follows redirects.

npm version Build Status Coverage Status npm downloads Sponsor on GitHub

follow-redirects provides request and get methods that behave identically to those found on the native http and https modules, with the exception that they will seamlessly follow redirects.

const { http, https } = require('follow-redirects');

http.get('http://bit.ly/900913', response => {
  response.on('data', chunk => {
    console.log(chunk);
  });
}).on('error', err => {
  console.error(err);
});

You can inspect the final redirected URL through the responseUrl property on the response. If no redirection happened, responseUrl is the original request URL.

const request = https.request({
  host: 'bitly.com',
  path: '/UHfDGO',
}, response => {
  console.log(response.responseUrl);
  // 'http://duckduckgo.com/robots.txt'
});
request.end();

Options

Global options

Global options are set directly on the follow-redirects module:

const followRedirects = require('follow-redirects');
followRedirects.maxRedirects = 10;
followRedirects.maxBodyLength = 20 * 1024 * 1024; // 20 MB

The following global options are supported:

  • maxRedirects (default: 21) – sets the maximum number of allowed redirects; if exceeded, an error will be emitted.

  • maxBodyLength (default: 10MB) – sets the maximum size of the request body; if exceeded, an error will be emitted.

Per-request options

Per-request options are set by passing an options object:

const url = require('url');
const { http, https } = require('follow-redirects');

const options = url.parse('http://bit.ly/900913');
options.maxRedirects = 10;
options.beforeRedirect = (options, { headers }) => {
  // Use this to adjust the request options upon redirecting,
  // to inspect the latest response headers,
  // or to cancel the request by throwing an error
  if (options.hostname === "example.com") {
    options.auth = "user:password";
  }
};
http.request(options);

In addition to the standard HTTP and HTTPS options, the following per-request options are supported:

  • followRedirects (default: true) – whether redirects should be followed.

  • maxRedirects (default: 21) – sets the maximum number of allowed redirects; if exceeded, an error will be emitted.

  • maxBodyLength (default: 10MB) – sets the maximum size of the request body; if exceeded, an error will be emitted.

  • beforeRedirect (default: undefined) – optionally change the request options on redirects, or abort the request by throwing an error.

  • agents (default: undefined) – sets the agent option per protocol, since HTTP and HTTPS use different agents. Example value: { http: new http.Agent(), https: new https.Agent() }

  • trackRedirects (default: false) – whether to store the redirected response details into the redirects array on the response object.

Advanced usage

By default, follow-redirects will use the Node.js default implementations of http and https. To enable features such as caching and/or intermediate request tracking, you might instead want to wrap follow-redirects around custom protocol implementations:

const { http, https } = require('follow-redirects').wrap({
  http: require('your-custom-http'),
  https: require('your-custom-https'),
});

Such custom protocols only need an implementation of the request method.

Browser Usage

Due to the way the browser works, the http and https browser equivalents perform redirects by default.

By requiring follow-redirects this way:

const http = require('follow-redirects/http');
const https = require('follow-redirects/https');

you can easily tell webpack and friends to replace follow-redirect by the built-in versions:

{
  "follow-redirects/http"  : "http",
  "follow-redirects/https" : "https"
}

Contributing

Pull Requests are always welcome. Please file an issue detailing your proposal before you invest your valuable time. Additional features and bug fixes should be accompanied by tests. You can run the test suite locally with a simple npm test command.

Debug Logging

follow-redirects uses the excellent debug for logging. To turn on logging set the environment variable DEBUG=follow-redirects for debug output from just this module. When running the test suite it is sometimes advantageous to set DEBUG=* to see output from the express server as well.

Authors

License

MIT License

Keywords

FAQs

Last updated on 13 Dec 2020

Did you know?

Socket for GitHub automatically highlights issues in each pull request and monitors the health of all your open source dependencies. Discover the contents of your packages and block harmful activity before you install or update your dependencies.

Install

Related posts

SocketSocket SOC 2 Logo

Product

  • Package Alerts
  • Integrations
  • Docs
  • Pricing
  • FAQ
  • Roadmap

Stay in touch

Get open source security insights delivered straight into your inbox.


  • Terms
  • Privacy
  • Security

Made with ⚡️ by Socket Inc