urllib

What is urllib?

The urllib npm package is a utility library for making HTTP requests and handling URLs. It provides a simple and flexible API for performing various types of HTTP requests, handling query parameters, and working with URLs.

What are urllib's main functionalities?

HTTP GET Request

This feature allows you to make a simple HTTP GET request to a specified URL. The callback function handles the response data or any errors that occur.

const urllib = require('urllib');

urllib.request('https://api.example.com/data', function (err, data, res) {
  if (err) {
    console.error(err);
    return;
  }
  console.log(data.toString());
});

HTTP POST Request

This feature allows you to make an HTTP POST request with a payload. The data object contains the key-value pairs to be sent in the request body.

const urllib = require('urllib');

urllib.request('https://api.example.com/data', {
  method: 'POST',
  data: {
    key1: 'value1',
    key2: 'value2'
  }
}, function (err, data, res) {
  if (err) {
    console.error(err);
    return;
  }
  console.log(data.toString());
});

Handling Query Parameters

This feature allows you to include query parameters in your HTTP request. The data object is automatically serialized into a query string and appended to the URL.

const urllib = require('urllib');

const params = {
  key1: 'value1',
  key2: 'value2'
};

urllib.request('https://api.example.com/data', {
  data: params
}, function (err, data, res) {
  if (err) {
    console.error(err);
    return;
  }
  console.log(data.toString());
});

Custom Headers

This feature allows you to set custom headers for your HTTP request. The headers object contains key-value pairs representing the header names and values.

const urllib = require('urllib');

urllib.request('https://api.example.com/data', {
  headers: {
    'Authorization': 'Bearer token',
    'Content-Type': 'application/json'
  }
}, function (err, data, res) {
  if (err) {
    console.error(err);
    return;
  }
  console.log(data.toString());
});

Other packages similar to urllib

axios

Axios is a promise-based HTTP client for the browser and Node.js. It provides a more modern and flexible API compared to urllib, with support for interceptors, request cancellation, and automatic JSON data transformation.

node-fetch

Node-fetch is a lightweight module that brings the Fetch API to Node.js. It is a minimalistic alternative to urllib, focusing on simplicity and compliance with the Fetch standard.

request

Request is a simplified HTTP client for Node.js with a rich set of features. It is more feature-rich than urllib, offering support for OAuth, cookies, and multipart form data. However, it has been deprecated in favor of more modern alternatives like axios.

README

urllib

Request HTTP URLs in a complex world — basic and digest authentication, redirections, timeout and more.

Install

npm install urllib

Usage

TypeScript and ESM

import { request } from 'urllib';

const { data, res } = await request('http://cnodejs.org/');
// result: { data: Buffer, res: Response }
console.log('status: %s, body size: %d, headers: %j', res.status, data.length, res.headers);

CommonJS

const { request } = require('urllib');

const { data, res } = await request('http://cnodejs.org/');
// result: { data: Buffer, res: Response }
console.log('status: %s, body size: %d, headers: %j', res.status, data.length, res.headers);

API Doc

Method: async request(url[, options])

Arguments

• url String | Object - The URL to request, either a String or a Object that return by url.parse.
• options Object - Optional
  • method String - Request method, defaults to GET. Could be GET, POST, DELETE or PUT. Alias 'type'.
  • data Object - Data to be sent. Will be stringify automatically.
  • content String | Buffer - Manually set the content of payload. If set, data will be ignored.
  • stream stream.Readable - Stream to be pipe to the remote. If set, data and content will be ignored.
  • writeStream stream.Writable - A writable stream to be piped by the response stream. Responding data will be write to this stream and callback will be called with data set null after finished writing.
  • files {Array<ReadStream|Buffer|String> | Object | ReadStream | Buffer | String - The files will send with multipart/form-data format, base on formstream. If method not set, will use POST method by default.
  • contentType String - Type of request data. Could be json (Notes: not use application/json here). If it's json, will auto set Content-Type: application/json header.
  • dataType String - Type of response data. Could be text or json. If it's text, the callbacked data would be a String. If it's json, the data of callback would be a parsed JSON Object and will auto set Accept: application/json header. Default callbacked data would be a Buffer.
  • fixJSONCtlChars Boolean - Fix the control characters (U+0000 through U+001F) before JSON parse response. Default is false.
  • headers Object - Request headers.
  • timeout Number | Array - Request timeout in milliseconds for connecting phase and response receiving phase. Default is 5000. You can use timeout: 5000 to tell urllib use same timeout on two phase or set them seperately such as timeout: [3000, 5000], which will set connecting timeout to 3s and response 5s.
  • keepAliveTimeout number | null - Default is 4000, 4 seconds - The timeout after which a socket without active requests will time out. Monitors time between activity on a connected socket. This value may be overridden by keep-alive hints from the server. See MDN: HTTP - Headers - Keep-Alive directives for more details.
  • auth String - username:password used in HTTP Basic Authorization.
  • digestAuth String - username:password used in HTTP Digest Authorization.
  • followRedirect Boolean - follow HTTP 3xx responses as redirects. defaults to true.
  • maxRedirects Number - The maximum number of redirects to follow, defaults to 10.
  • formatRedirectUrl Function - Format the redirect url by your self. Default is url.resolve(from, to).
  • beforeRequest Function - Before request hook, you can change every thing here.
  • streaming Boolean - let you get the res object when request connected, default false. alias customResponse
  • compressed Boolean - Accept gzip, br response content and auto decode it, default is true.
  • timing Boolean - Enable timing or not, default is true.
  • socketPath String | null - request a unix socket service, default is null.
  • highWaterMark Number - default is 67108864, 64 KiB.

Options: options.data

When making a request:

await request('https://example.com', {
  method: 'GET',
  data: {
    'a': 'hello',
    'b': 'world',
  },
});

For GET request, data will be stringify to query string, e.g. http://example.com/?a=hello&b=world.

For others like POST, PATCH or PUT request, in defaults, the data will be stringify into application/x-www-form-urlencoded format if content-type header is not set.

If content-type is application/json, the data will be JSON.stringify to JSON data format.

Options: options.content

options.content is useful when you wish to construct the request body by yourself, for example making a content-type: application/json request.

Notes that if you want to send a JSON body, you should stringify it yourself:

await request('https://example.com', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {
    'Content-Type': 'application/json',
  },
  content: JSON.stringify({
    a: 'hello',
    b: 'world',
  }),
});

It would make a HTTP request like:

POST / HTTP/1.1
host: example.com
content-type: application/json

{
  "a": "hello",
  "b": "world"
}

This exmaple can use options.data with application/json content type:

await request('https://example.com', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {
    'content-type': 'application/json'
  },
  data: {
    a: 'hello',
    b: 'world',
  }
});

Options: options.files

Upload a file with a hello field.

await request('https://example.com/upload', {
  method: 'POST',
  files: __filename,
  data: {
    hello: 'hello urllib',
  },
});

Upload multi files with a hello field.

await request('https://example.com/upload', {
  method: 'POST',
  files: [
    __filename,
    fs.createReadStream(__filename),
    Buffer.from('mock file content'),
  ],
  data: {
    hello: 'hello urllib with multi files',
  },
});

Custom file field name with uploadfile.

await request('https://example.com/upload', {
  method: 'POST',
  files: {
    uploadfile: __filename,
  },
});

Response Object

Response is normal object, it contains:

• status or statusCode: response status code.
  • -1 meaning some network error like ENOTFOUND
  • -2 meaning ConnectionTimeoutError
• headers: response http headers, default is {}
• size: response size
• aborted: response was aborted or not
• rt: total request and response time in ms.
• timing: timing object if timing enable.
• socket: socket info

Run test with debug log

NODE_DEBUG=urllib:* npm test

Request with HTTP2

Create a HttpClient with options.allowH2 = true

import { HttpClient } from 'urllib';

const httpClient = new HttpClient({
  allowH2: true,
});

const response = await httpClient.request('https://node.js.org');
console.log(response.status);
console.log(response.headers);

Mocking Request

export from undici

import { strict as assert } from 'assert';
import { MockAgent, setGlobalDispatcher, request } from 'urllib';

const mockAgent = new MockAgent();
setGlobalDispatcher(mockAgent);

const mockPool = mockAgent.get('http://localhost:7001');

mockPool.intercept({
  path: '/foo',
  method: 'POST',
}).reply(400, {
  message: 'mock 400 bad request',
});

const response = await request('http://localhost:7001/foo', {
  method: 'POST',
  dataType: 'json',
});
assert.equal(response.status, 400);
assert.deepEqual(response.data, { message: 'mock 400 bad request' });

Request through a http proxy

export from undici

import { ProxyAgent, request } from 'urllib';

const proxyAgent = new ProxyAgent('http://my.proxy.com:8080');
const response = await request('https://www.npmjs.com/package/urllib', {
  dispatcher: proxyAgent,
});
console.log(response.status, response.headers);

Benchmarks

Fork undici benchmarks script

undici@6.19.2

Node.js v18.20.3

┌─────────┬───────────────────────┬─────────┬────────────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────────────────┐
│ (index) │         Tests         │ Samples │       Result       │  Tolerance  │ Difference with slowest │
├─────────┼───────────────────────┼─────────┼────────────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────────────────┤
│    0    │  'urllib2 - request'  │   10    │  '321.53 req/sec'  │ '± 0.38 %'  │           '-'           │
│    1    │ 'http - no keepalive' │   10    │  '607.77 req/sec'  │ '± 0.80 %'  │       '+ 89.02 %'       │
│    2    │         'got'         │   101   │ '7929.51 req/sec'  │ '± 4.46 %'  │      '+ 2366.15 %'      │
│    3    │     'node-fetch'      │   40    │ '8651.95 req/sec'  │ '± 2.99 %'  │      '+ 2590.84 %'      │
│    4    │       'request'       │   101   │ '8864.09 req/sec'  │ '± 7.81 %'  │      '+ 2656.82 %'      │
│    5    │   'undici - fetch'    │   101   │ '9607.01 req/sec'  │ '± 4.23 %'  │      '+ 2887.87 %'      │
│    6    │        'axios'        │   55    │ '10378.80 req/sec' │ '± 2.94 %'  │      '+ 3127.91 %'      │
│    7    │     'superagent'      │   75    │ '11286.74 req/sec' │ '± 2.90 %'  │      '+ 3410.29 %'      │
│    8    │  'http - keepalive'   │   60    │ '11288.96 req/sec' │ '± 2.95 %'  │      '+ 3410.98 %'      │
│    9    │  'urllib4 - request'  │   101   │ '11352.65 req/sec' │ '± 10.20 %' │      '+ 3430.79 %'      │
│   10    │  'urllib3 - request'  │   40    │ '13831.19 req/sec' │ '± 2.89 %'  │      '+ 4201.64 %'      │
│   11    │  'undici - pipeline'  │   60    │ '14562.44 req/sec' │ '± 2.91 %'  │      '+ 4429.06 %'      │
│   12    │  'undici - request'   │   70    │ '19630.64 req/sec' │ '± 2.87 %'  │      '+ 6005.32 %'      │
│   13    │   'undici - stream'   │   55    │ '20843.50 req/sec' │ '± 2.90 %'  │      '+ 6382.54 %'      │
│   14    │  'undici - dispatch'  │   55    │ '21233.10 req/sec' │ '± 2.82 %'  │      '+ 6503.70 %'      │
└─────────┴───────────────────────┴─────────┴────────────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────────────────┘

Node.js v20.15.0

┌─────────┬───────────────────────┬─────────┬────────────────────┬────────────┬─────────────────────────┐
│ (index) │ Tests                 │ Samples │ Result             │ Tolerance  │ Difference with slowest │
├─────────┼───────────────────────┼─────────┼────────────────────┼────────────┼─────────────────────────┤
│ 0       │ 'urllib2 - request'   │ 10      │ '332.91 req/sec'   │ '± 1.13 %' │ '-'                     │
│ 1       │ 'http - no keepalive' │ 10      │ '615.50 req/sec'   │ '± 2.25 %' │ '+ 84.88 %'             │
│ 2       │ 'got'                 │ 55      │ '7658.39 req/sec'  │ '± 2.98 %' │ '+ 2200.42 %'           │
│ 3       │ 'node-fetch'          │ 30      │ '7832.96 req/sec'  │ '± 2.96 %' │ '+ 2252.86 %'           │
│ 4       │ 'axios'               │ 40      │ '8607.27 req/sec'  │ '± 2.79 %' │ '+ 2485.44 %'           │
│ 5       │ 'request'             │ 35      │ '8703.49 req/sec'  │ '± 2.84 %' │ '+ 2514.35 %'           │
│ 6       │ 'undici - fetch'      │ 65      │ '9971.24 req/sec'  │ '± 2.96 %' │ '+ 2895.15 %'           │
│ 7       │ 'superagent'          │ 30      │ '11006.46 req/sec' │ '± 2.90 %' │ '+ 3206.11 %'           │
│ 8       │ 'http - keepalive'    │ 55      │ '11610.14 req/sec' │ '± 2.87 %' │ '+ 3387.44 %'           │
│ 9       │ 'urllib3 - request'   │ 25      │ '13873.38 req/sec' │ '± 2.96 %' │ '+ 4067.27 %'           │
│ 10      │ 'urllib4 - request'   │ 25      │ '14291.36 req/sec' │ '± 2.92 %' │ '+ 4192.82 %'           │
│ 11      │ 'undici - pipeline'   │ 45      │ '14617.69 req/sec' │ '± 2.84 %' │ '+ 4290.85 %'           │
│ 12      │ 'undici - dispatch'   │ 101     │ '18716.29 req/sec' │ '± 3.97 %' │ '+ 5521.98 %'           │
│ 13      │ 'undici - request'    │ 101     │ '19165.16 req/sec' │ '± 3.25 %' │ '+ 5656.81 %'           │
│ 14      │ 'undici - stream'     │ 30      │ '21816.28 req/sec' │ '± 2.99 %' │ '+ 6453.15 %'           │
└─────────┴───────────────────────┴─────────┴────────────────────┴────────────┴─────────────────────────┘

Node.js v22.3.0

┌─────────┬───────────────────────┬─────────┬────────────────────┬────────────┬─────────────────────────┐
│ (index) │ Tests                 │ Samples │ Result             │ Tolerance  │ Difference with slowest │
├─────────┼───────────────────────┼─────────┼────────────────────┼────────────┼─────────────────────────┤
│ 0       │ 'urllib2 - request'   │ 15      │ '297.46 req/sec'   │ '± 2.65 %' │ '-'                     │
│ 1       │ 'http - no keepalive' │ 10      │ '598.25 req/sec'   │ '± 1.94 %' │ '+ 101.12 %'            │
│ 2       │ 'axios'               │ 30      │ '8487.94 req/sec'  │ '± 2.91 %' │ '+ 2753.52 %'           │
│ 3       │ 'got'                 │ 50      │ '10054.46 req/sec' │ '± 2.89 %' │ '+ 3280.16 %'           │
│ 4       │ 'request'             │ 45      │ '10306.02 req/sec' │ '± 2.87 %' │ '+ 3364.73 %'           │
│ 5       │ 'node-fetch'          │ 55      │ '11160.02 req/sec' │ '± 2.87 %' │ '+ 3651.83 %'           │
│ 6       │ 'superagent'          │ 80      │ '11302.28 req/sec' │ '± 2.85 %' │ '+ 3699.66 %'           │
│ 7       │ 'undici - fetch'      │ 60      │ '11357.87 req/sec' │ '± 2.89 %' │ '+ 3718.35 %'           │
│ 8       │ 'http - keepalive'    │ 60      │ '13782.10 req/sec' │ '± 2.97 %' │ '+ 4533.34 %'           │
│ 9       │ 'urllib4 - request'   │ 70      │ '15965.62 req/sec' │ '± 2.88 %' │ '+ 5267.40 %'           │
│ 10      │ 'urllib3 - request'   │ 55      │ '16010.37 req/sec' │ '± 2.90 %' │ '+ 5282.45 %'           │
│ 11      │ 'undici - pipeline'   │ 35      │ '17969.37 req/sec' │ '± 2.95 %' │ '+ 5941.03 %'           │
│ 12      │ 'undici - dispatch'   │ 101     │ '18765.50 req/sec' │ '± 3.01 %' │ '+ 6208.68 %'           │
│ 13      │ 'undici - request'    │ 85      │ '20091.12 req/sec' │ '± 2.95 %' │ '+ 6654.33 %'           │
│ 14      │ 'undici - stream'     │ 45      │ '21599.12 req/sec' │ '± 2.81 %' │ '+ 7161.30 %'           │
└─────────┴───────────────────────┴─────────┴────────────────────┴────────────┴─────────────────────────┘

License

MIT

Contributors

Made with contributors-img.