request-libcurl

Request-libcurl

npm install --save request-libcurl

This is a server-only package. This package was created due to a lack of stability in the Node's http/https ClientRequest modules. Since we've been looking for something tested by decades and generations, — our choice stopped on libcurl, later core library might be changed, but we would keep same API and idea about fast, sustainable and simple HTTP requests.

Main features

• 👨‍💻 98% tests coverage + TDD (only for http(s));
• 👷‍♂️ Follow request API (simplified);
• 📦 The single dependency on node-libcurl package;
• 😎 IDNs support (internationalized domain names);
• 😎 HTTP/2 support;
• 😎 Repeat (built-in retries) request on failed or broken connection;
• 😎 Send GET/POST with custom body and headers;
• 😎 Follow or deny redirects;
• 📤 Upload files with a single line;
• 🔐 Ignore or deny "broken" SSL/TLS certificates;
• 💪 Bulletproof design, during development we avoid complex solutions.

ToC:

• Installation
• API
• Request options detailed description:
  • response description (success)
  • error description (fail)
  • LibCurlRequest API
• List of default request options
• Examples:
  • GET
  • POST
  • POST (advanced)
  • File upload
  • File upload (multipart)
• Known Issues
• Running tests
  • Tests
• Support

Install

# ONLY for node@>=8.9.0
npm install request-libcurl --save

// CommonJS
const request = require('request-libcurl');

//ES6 Style:
import request from 'request-libcurl';

Note

We build this package to serve our needs and solve our issues with Node's native API. It may have a lack of compatibility with request() module API, or compatible only partially.

API

const request = require('request-libcurl');

const opts = {
  method: 'GET', // POST, GET
  url: 'https://example.com', // String
  auth: 'username:password', // String
  form: '{"ops": "value"}', // String, can be JSON or any other type of payload
  headers: { // Object
    Accept: '*/*',
    'User-Agent': 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/73.0.3683.103 Safari/537.36'
  },
  debug: false, // Boolean
  retry: true, // Boolean
  retries: 3, // Number
  timeout: 6144, // Number
  keepAlive: false, // Boolean
  retryDelay: 256, // Number
  followRedirect: true, // Boolean
  maxRedirects: 4, // Number
  rejectUnauthorized: false // Boolean
};

// Callback API
request(opts, (error, resp) => {
  if (error) {
    // Houston we got a problem! 😱
    const { errorCode, code, statusCode, message } = error;
  } else {
    // We've got successful response! 🥳
    const { statusCode, body, headers } = resp;
  }
});

Request default options

const request = require('request-libcurl');

// Default "defaultOptions" Object:
request.defaultOptions = {
  wait: false,
  proxy: false,
  retry: true,
  debug: false,
  method: 'GET',
  timeout: 6144,
  retries: 3,
  rawBody: false,
  keepAlive: false,
  noStorage: false,
  retryDelay: 256,
  maxRedirects: 4,
  followRedirect: true,
  rejectUnauthorized: false,
  rejectUnauthorizedProxy: false,
  badStatuses: [ 300, 303, 305, 400, 407, 408, 409, 410, 500, 502, 503, 504, 510 ],
  isBadStatus(statusCode, badStatuses = request.defaultOptions.badStatuses) {
    return badStatuses.includes(statusCode) || statusCode >= 500;
  },
  headers: {
    'User-Agent': 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/73.0.3683.103 Safari/537.36',
    Accept: '*/*'
  }
};

// Override default settings:
request.defaultOptions.timeout = 7000;
request.defaultOptions.retries = 12;
request.defaultOptions.retryDelay = 5000;
request.defaultOptions.followRedirect = false;

// Override bad statuses codes (used to trigger retries)
request.defaultOptions.badStatuses = [300, 303, 305, 400, 407, 408, 409, 410];

// Override function used to trigger retries based on status code
request.defaultOptions.isBadStatus = (statusCode, badStatuses = request.defaultOptions.badStatuses) => {
  return badStatuses.includes(statusCode) || statusCode >= 500;
};

Request options

• opts.url or opts.uri {String} - [Required] Fully qualified URI with protocol http/https;
• opts.method {String} - [Optional] HTTP Method name, you can use any valid method name from HTTP specs, tested with GET/POST, default: GET;
• opts.auth {String} - [Optional] value for HTTP Authorization header as plain string in a form of username:password;
• opts.form {String|Object} - [Optional] Custom request body for POST request. If {String} is passed Content-Type will be set to application/x-www-form-urlencoded, by passing plain {Object} Content-Type will be set to application/json. To set custom Content-Type — pass it to opts.headers Object;
• opts.upload {Integer} - [Optional] To upload a file pass an Integer representing the file descriptor. See this example for reference;
• opts.headers {Object} - [Optional] Custom request headers, default: { Accept: '*/*', 'User-Agent': 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/73.0.3683.103 Safari/537.36' }. Note: setting custom request headers will replace default ones;
• opts.debug {Boolean} - [Optional] Enable debug and extra logging, default: false;
• opts.retry {Boolean} - [Optional] Retry request if connection is broken? Default: true;
• opts.retries {Number} - [Optional] How many times retry request if connection is broken, default: 3;
• opts.retryDelay {Number} - [Optional] How long to wait between request retries (ms), default: 256;
• opts.timeout {Number} - [Optional] How long to wait for response (ms), default: 6144;
• opts.followRedirect {Boolean} - [Optional] Shall request follow redirects? Default: true;
• opts.keepAlive {Boolean} - [Optional] Turn on TCP keepalive probes, default: false;
• opts.maxRedirects {Number} - [Optional] How many redirects are supported during single request, default: 4;
• opts.badStatuses {[Number]} - [Optional] Array of "bad" status codes responsible for triggering request retries, default: [300, 303, 305, 400, 407, 408, 409, 410, 500, 502, 503, 504, 510];
• opts.isBadStatus {Function} - [Optional] Function responsible for triggering request retries, default (at the bottom of code-block);
• opts.rawBody {Boolean} - Disable all data processing (body will be passed as Buffer, headers will be empty, use .onHeader() hook to get headers with rawBody option), great option for piping, default: false;
• opts.noStorage {Boolean} - Disable all data processing and data concatenation (headers and body won't be passed to response), great option for piping, default: false;
• opts.wait {Boolean} - Do not send request immediately and wait until .send() method is called, set this option to true to register .onHeader() and .onBody() hooks, default: false;
• opts.proxy {String} - Fully qualified URL to HTTP proxy, when this feature is enabled connections are going to start with CONNECT request, default: no proxy or system proxy is used;
• opts.rejectUnauthorized {Boolean} - [Optional] Shall request be rejected if SSL/TLS certificate can't be validated? Default: false;
• opts.rejectUnauthorizedProxy {Boolean} - [Optional] Shall request be rejected if SSL/TLS certificate of a proxy host can't be validated? Default: false;
• opts.curlOptions {Object} - [Optional] Explicitly set libcurl options, full list of options available here and here;
• opts.curlFeatures {Object} - [Optional] Explicitly enable or disable libcurl features. To enable a feature pass true as a value, example: {NoDataParsing: true}. To disable pass false as a value, example: {NoDataParsing: false}. Full list of available features is available here.

Notes:

• When using opts.rawBody callback won't return headers, to get headers use onHeader hook;
• When using opts.noStorage callback won't return headers and body, to get headers and body use onData and onHeader hooks;
• opts.upload and opts.form can not be used together, there won't be exception thrown, if both presented — opts.form will be used;
• When using opts.upload or any other request where server returns expect: '100-continue' HTTP header — callback won't return headers, to get headers use onHeader hook;
• This package is build on top of libcurl and node-libcurl it's the way much more powerful than just sending requests via http and https protocol. Libcurl can work with IMAP/SMTP protocols getting/sending emails. Libcurl can serve as fully-featured FTP-client. Here's full list of supported protocols: DICT, FILE, FTP, FTPS, Gopher, HTTP, HTTPS, IMAP, IMAPS, LDAP, LDAPS, POP3, POP3S, RTMP, RTSP, SCP, SFTP, SMTP, SMTPS, Telnet and TFTP. To learn more on how to utilize all available power and features see docs of node-libcurl and libcurl itself.

let _body    = Buffer.from('');
let _headers = Buffer.from('');
const headersObj = {};

const req = request({
  url: 'https://example.com',
  retry: false, // Do not retry with rawBody/noStorage, as it may mess up with headers and body inside `.onData()` and `.onHeader()` hooks
  rawBody: true,
  wait: true // Using 'wait' option to set `.onData()` and `.onHeader()` hooks
}, (error) => {
  if (error) {
    throw error;
  }
  const body = _body.toString('utf8');
  const headers = _headers.toString('utf8');
});

req.onData((chunkAsBuffer) => {
  // Do something with a body
  // .pipe() for example
  _body = Buffer.concat([_body, chunkAsBuffer]);
});

req.onHeader((chunkAsBuffer) => {
  _headers = Buffer.concat([_headers, chunkAsBuffer]);

  // or convert it to headers Object:
  const header = chunkAsBuffer.toString('utf8');
  if (header.includes(':')) {
    const splitHeader = header.split(':');
    headersObj[splitHeader[0].toLowerCase().trim()] = splitHeader[1].trim();
  }
});

req.send();

Response

• resp.statusCode {Number} - HTTP response/status code;
• resp.body {String} - Body of HTTP response, not modified or processed, as it is — plain text;
• resp.headers {Object} - HTTP response headers as plain Object, all headers names are lower-cased.

Error

• error.errorCode {Number} - libcurl internal error code;
• error.code {Number} - libcurl internal error code, same as errorCode;
• error.statusCode {Number} - HTTP error code, if any;
• error.message {String} - Human-readable error.

Returns req Object

const request = require('request-libcurl');
const req     = request({url: 'https://example.com'});

• req.abort() - Abort current request, request will return 499: Client Closed Request HTTP error
• req.send() - Send request, use it with wait. For example with rawBody/noStorage, when you need to delay sending request, for example to set event listeners and/or hooks
• req.onData(callback) - Hook, called right after data is received, called for each data-chunk. Useful with .pipe(), rawBody/noStorage and hooks/events
• req.onHeader(callback) - Hook, called right after header is received, called for each header. Useful with .pipe(), rawBody/noStorage and hooks/events
• callback(error, resp) - Callback triggered on successful response
  • error {undefined};
  • resp.statusCode {Number} - HTTP status code;
  • resp.body {String} - Body of HTTP response, not modified or processed, as it is — plain text;
  • resp.headers {Object} - Key-value plain Object with pairs of response headers;
• callback(error) - Callback triggered on failed request
  • error.errorCode {Number} - libcurl internal error code;
  • error.code {Number} - libcurl internal error code, same as errorCode;
  • error.statusCode {Number} - HTTP error code, if any;
  • error.message {String} - Human-readable error.

Examples

GET request

const request = require('request-libcurl');

// GET request:
request({ url: 'https://example.com' }, (error, resp) => {
  /* ... */
});

POST request

const request = require('request-libcurl');
const querystring = require('querystring');

// POST (Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded):
// by passing a String or formatted "Query String" to `form`
request({
  method: 'POST',
  url: 'https://example.com',
  form: querystring.stringify({ myForm: 'data' })
}, (error, resp) => {
  /* ... */
});

// POST with Authorization (Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded):
// by passing a String or formatted "Query String" to `form`
request({
  method: 'POST',
  url: 'https://example.com',
  auth: 'username:passwd',
  form: querystring.stringify({ myForm: 'data' })
}, (error, resp) => {
  /* ... */
});

// POST (Content-Type: application/json):
// by passing plain Object to `form`
request({
  method: 'POST',
  url: 'https://example.com',
  form: { myForm: 'data' }
}, (error, resp) => {
  /* ... */
});

POST request with extra options

const request = require('request-libcurl');

// POST with Authorization (Content-Type: application/json):
// by passing plain Object to `form`
request({
  method: 'POST',
  url: 'https://example.com',
  auth: 'username:passwd',
  form: { myForm: 'data' }
}, (error, resp) => {
  /* ... */
});

// Custom POST (Content-Type: text/plain):
// by passing custom Headers
request({
  method: 'POST',
  url: 'https://example.com',
  form: 'Plain String or Base64 String or any other String',
  headers: {
    'Content-Type': 'text/plain'
  }
}, (error, resp) => {
  /* ... */
});

File upload

const fs = require('fs');
const request = require('request-libcurl');

fs.open('/path/to/a/file', 'r', function(err, fd) {
  if (err) {
    throw new Error('can not read the file');
  }

  request({
    method: 'POST',
    url: 'https://example.com/upload',
    upload: fd,
    retry: false,
  }, (error, resp) => {
    if (error) {
      throw error;
    } else {
      // File successfully uploaded
    }
  });
});

File upload (multipart/form-data)

In this example we are going to use HTTPPOST libcurl option passing [Object] (array of Objects representing files, note: multiple files can be passed in a single request) via curlOptions

const request = require('request-libcurl');
const fileLocation = '/full/absolute/path/to/a/file.ext';

request({
  method: 'POST', // Can be used with PUT
  url: 'https://example.com/upload.php',
  retry: false,
  curlOptions: {
    HTTPPOST: [{
      name: 'file.ext', // File's name
      file: fileLocation, // Full absolute path to a file on FS
      type: 'application/ext' // File's mime-type
    } /*, {...} */]
  }
}, (error) => {
  if (error) {
    throw error;
  } else {
    // File(s) successfully uploaded
  }
});

Known Issues

Due to single dependency on node-libcurl which shipped with statically built binaries, you may encounter This module was compiled against a different Node.js version using NODE_MODULE_VERSION error. This may happen on edge cases, like running the very latest release of node.js (while bundled builds aren't shipped yet), then you may want to build this package locally, use one of next commands:

# Build library
npm install --save request-libcurl --build-from-source

# Build library and curl executables:
npm install --save request-libcurl --build-from-source --curl_static_build=true

# In case if you encounter errors during building package locally:
# 1. Execute same command as "sudo" (e.g. administrator), and try again
# 2. Install globally node-gyp and node-pre-gyp NPM packages, and try again

For more details and instructions for different platforms read node-libcurl official docs. Note: It's highly recommended to run tests after building package locally.

Running Tests

1. Clone this package
2. In Terminal (Console) go to directory where package is cloned
3. Then run:

# Install development NPM dependencies:
npm install --save-dev
# Install NPM dependencies:
npm install --save
# Run tests:
PORT=3003 npm test
# Run tests and output debugging details:
DEBUG=true PORT=3003 npm test
# PORT env.var is required! And can be changed to any open port!
# Note: The Internet connection is required to perform tests
# Note: Test-suite includes "no response" and "timing out responses"
# if a test looks stuck — give it another minute before interrupting it

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