superagent
Advanced tools
The superagent npm package 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 designed to make HTTP requests from both Node.js and browsers.
GET requests
This feature allows you to make GET requests to retrieve data from a server. You can include query parameters and handle the response asynchronously.
superagent.get('/search').query({ query: 'Manny' }).end(function(err, res){ /* handling response */ });POST requests
This feature is used to send POST requests to a server. You can send data as part of the request body and set custom headers.
superagent.post('/api/pets').send({ name: 'Manny', species: 'cat' }).set('X-API-Key', 'foobar').end(function(err, res){ /* handling response */ });Handling responses
This feature allows you to handle responses from the server, checking if the request was successful and then acting on the data received.
superagent.get('/some-url').end(function(err, res){ if (res.ok) { console.log('yay got ' + JSON.stringify(res.body)); } else { console.log('Oh no! error ' + res.text); } });Promises and async/await
Superagent can be used with promises and async/await syntax for better asynchronous control flow.
async function getData() { try { const res = await superagent.get('/some-url'); console.log(res.body); } catch (err) { console.error(err); } }Pipelining requests
This feature allows you to pipe the response stream directly to a file or another writable stream.
superagent.get('/some-url').pipe(fs.createWriteStream('result.txt'))Axios is a promise-based HTTP client for the browser and Node.js. It provides a simple API and handles requests and responses in JSON format. Compared to superagent, it has built-in CSRF protection and supports interceptors for request and response transformation.
The Fetch API provides a more modern alternative to XMLHttpRequest for making HTTP requests in the browser. It is not an npm package but a built-in browser API. It returns promises and works with async/await. Unlike superagent, it is not Node.js compatible without polyfills.
Got is a Node.js HTTP request library that is designed to be a simpler and more user-friendly alternative to Node's native 'http' module. It supports promises and async/await, streams, and advanced features like retries and timeouts. It is often compared to superagent for its simplicity and feature set.
node-fetch is a light-weight module that brings the browser Fetch API to Node.js. It is similar to superagent but is designed to mimic the Fetch API as closely as possible. It is promise-based and supports stream consumption.
Request is a simplified HTTP request client for Node.js, but it has been deprecated. It was known for its simplicity and wide adoption. Superagent offers a similar feature set but continues to be maintained and updated.
Super-agent is an elegant, small (~1.7kb compressed), progressive client-side HTTP request library.
This library spawned from my frustration with jQuery's weak /inconsistent Ajax support. jQuery's API while having recently added some promise-like support, is largely static, forcing you to build up big objects containing all the header fields and options, not to mention most of the options are awkwardly named "type" instead of "method", etc. Onto examples!
Before we get started, superagent is namespaced to superagent, however I personally like to just call this request:
request = superagent;
The following is what you might typically do for a simple GET with jQuery:
$.get('/user/1', function(data, textStatus, xhr){
});
great, it's ok, but it's kinda lame having 3 arguments just to access something on the xhr. Our equivalent would be:
request.get('/user/1', function(res){
});
the response object is an instanceof request.Response, encapsulating all of this information instead of throwing a bunch of arguments at you. For example we can check res.status, res.header for header fields, res.text, res.body etc.
An example of a JSON POST with jQuery typically might use $.post(), however once you need to start defining header fields you have to then re-write it using $.ajax()... so that might look like:
$.ajax({
url: '/api/pet',
type: 'POST',
data: { name: 'Manny', species: 'cat' },
headers: { 'X-API-Key': 'foobar' }
}).success(function(res){
}).error(function(){
});
Not only is it ugly, it's opinionated, jQuery likes to treat {4,5}xx responses specifically, for example you cannot (easily at least) receive a parsed JSON response for say "400 Bad Request". This same request would look like this:
request
.post('/api/pet')
.data({ name: 'Manny', species: 'cat' })
.set('X-API-Key', 'foobar')
.set('Accept', 'application/json')
.end(function(res){
});
or we can pass data to .send() which combines .data() and .end(), which is really ugly unless you are passing a variable:
request
.post('/api/pet')
.set('X-API-Key', 'foobar')
.send(cat, function(res){
});
building on the existing API internally we also provide something similar to $.post() for those times in life where your interactions are very basic:
request.post('/api/pet', cat, function(res){
});
Install the test server deps (nodejs / express):
$ npm install -d
Start the test server:
$ make test
Visit localhost:3000/test/ in the browser.
Tested in:
- Firefox 5.x
- Safari 5.x
- Chrome 13.x
(The MIT License)
Copyright (c) 2011 TJ Holowaychuk <tj@vision-media.ca>
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the 'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.
0.1.1 / 2011-08-20
res.redirect flag (node)Request#redirects(n) (node).set(object) header field supportContent-Length supportFAQs
elegant & feature rich browser / node HTTP with a fluent API
The npm package superagent receives a total of 5,715,488 weekly downloads. As such, superagent popularity was classified as popular.
We found that superagent demonstrated a healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released less than a year ago. It has 0 open source maintainers collaborating on the project.
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