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The needle npm package is a minimalistic HTTP client for Node.js, designed for simplicity and ease of use. It provides a straightforward interface for making HTTP requests and handling responses, supporting both callbacks and streams. It is lightweight and has built-in support for multipart form-data, which makes it suitable for file uploads and other form-related tasks.
Making HTTP GET requests
This feature allows you to perform HTTP GET requests to retrieve data from a specified URL. The callback function receives an error object and the response object, which includes the status code and the response body.
const needle = require('needle');
needle.get('https://api.example.com', (error, response) => {
if (!error && response.statusCode == 200)
console.log(response.body);
});
Making HTTP POST requests
This feature is used to send HTTP POST requests with data to a specified URL. The data can be an object, which needle will automatically encode as application/x-www-form-urlencoded or multipart/form-data, depending on the content.
const needle = require('needle');
const data = { foo: 'bar' };
needle.post('https://api.example.com', data, (error, response) => {
if (!error && response.statusCode == 200)
console.log(response.body);
});
Streaming support
Needle supports streaming, which allows you to pipe the response stream to another stream, such as a file write stream. This is useful for handling large amounts of data or streaming file downloads.
const needle = require('needle');
const fs = require('fs');
const stream = needle.get('https://api.example.com/stream');
stream.pipe(fs.createWriteStream('output.txt'));
Handling multipart form-data
Needle can handle multipart form-data, which is often used for file uploads. The data object can include file buffers, streams, or paths, and needle will handle the multipart encoding for you.
const needle = require('needle');
const data = {
file: { file: 'path/to/file.jpg', content_type: 'image/jpeg' },
other_field: 'value'
};
needle.post('https://api.example.com/upload', data, { multipart: true }, (error, response) => {
if (!error && response.statusCode == 200)
console.log('Upload successful');
});
Axios is a promise-based HTTP client for the browser and Node.js. It provides a rich set of features like interceptors, automatic JSON data transformation, and cancellation. Compared to needle, axios is more feature-rich and has a larger footprint.
Request is a simplified HTTP request client that offers a wide range of features including OAuth signing, form uploads, and cookies. It is more complex and heavier than needle but has been deprecated as of 2020.
Got is a human-friendly and powerful HTTP request library for Node.js. It supports promises and async/await, streams, retries, and more. Got is more comprehensive than needle and is designed to be a more modern alternative with a focus on simplicity and composability.
Node-fetch is a light-weight module that brings the Fetch API to Node.js. It is a minimal and straightforward API that closely mirrors the browser's fetch API. Compared to needle, node-fetch is more aligned with web standards.
Superagent is a small progressive client-side HTTP request library, and Node.js module with the same API, sporting many high-level HTTP client features. It is more expressive than needle and includes features like a fluent API, chaining, and more.
Async HTTP client for NodeJS. Supports HTTPS, basic authentication, proxied requests, multipart form uploads and gzip/deflate compression. Really simple stuff, around ~250 lines of code.
var client = require('needle');
client.get(url, [options], callback);
client.post(url, data, [options], callback);
client.put(url, data, [options], callback);
client.delete(url, [options], callback);
Callback receives three arguments: (error, response, body)
timeout
: Returns error if response takes more than X. Defaults to 10000
(10 secs).compressed
: Whether to ask for a deflated or gzipped response or not. Defaults to false
.parse
: Whether to parse XML or JSON response bodies automagically. Defaults to true
.multipart
: Enables multipart/form-data encoding. Defaults to false
.username
: For HTTP basic auth.password
: For HTTP basic auth. Requires username to be passed, obviously.agent
: Uses an http.Agent of your choice, instead of the global (default) one.proxy
: Sends request via HTTP proxy. Eg. proxy: 'http://proxy.server.com:3128'
client.get('http://www.google.com', function(err, resp, body){
console.log("Got status code: " + resp.statusCode);
});
You can also skip the 'http://' part if you want, by the way.
client.get('https://www.google.com/search?q=syd+barrett', function(err, resp, body){
// boom! works.
});
var options = {
username: 'you',
password: 'secret',
compressed: true,
timeout: false,
headers: {
'X-Secret-Header': "Even more secret text"
}
}
client.get('http://api.server.com', options, function(err, resp, body){
// used HTTP auth
});
client.get('http://search.npmjs.org', { proxy: 'http://localhost:1234' }, function(err, resp, body){
// request passed through proxy
});
client.post('https://my.app.com/endpoint', 'foo=bar', function(err, resp, body){
// you can pass params as a string or as an object
});
var data = {
foo: 'bar',
nested: {
params: {
are: {
also: 'supported'
}
}
}
}
client.put('https://api.app.com/v2', data, function(err, resp, body){
// if you don't pass any data, needle will throw an exception.
});
var data = {
foo: bar,
image: { file: '/home/tomas/linux.png', content_type: 'image/png' }
}
var options = {
multipart: true,
timeout: 5000
}
client.post('http://my.other.app.com', data, options, function(err, resp, body){
// in this case, if the request takes more than 5 seconds
// the callback will return a [Socket closed] error
});
var buffer = fs.readFileSync('/path/to/package.zip');
var data = {
zip_file: { buffer: buffer, filename: 'mypackage.zip', content_type: 'application/octet-stream' },
}
client.post('http://somewhere.com/over/the/rainbow', data, {multipart: true}, function(err, resp, body){
// if you see, when using buffers we need to pass the filename for the multipart body.
// you can also pass a filename when using the file path method, in case you want to override
// the default filename to be received on the other end.
});
Written by Tomás Pollak, with the help of contributors.
(c) 2012 Fork Ltd. Licensed under the MIT license.
FAQs
The leanest and most handsome HTTP client in the Nodelands.
The npm package needle receives a total of 6,342,659 weekly downloads. As such, needle popularity was classified as popular.
We found that needle demonstrated a healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released less than a year ago. It has 1 open source maintainer collaborating on the project.
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