JSPM

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Tiny yet feature-packed HTTP client. With multipart, deflate & proxy support.

Package Exports

  • needle

This package does not declare an exports field, so the exports above have been automatically detected and optimized by JSPM instead. If any package subpath is missing, it is recommended to post an issue to the original package (needle) to support the "exports" field. If that is not possible, create a JSPM override to customize the exports field for this package.

Readme

Needle

The most handsome HTTP client in the Nodelands. Supports SSL, basic auth, requests via proxy, multipart form-data (e.g. file uploads), gzip/deflate compression and, as you would expect, follows redirects. Simple, nimble and to the point.

Usage

var needle = require('needle');

needle.get('http://www.google.com', function(err, resp, body){
  console.log("Got status code: " + resp.statusCode);
});

Install

npm install needle

Options

  • timeout: Returns error if response takes more than X milisecs. Defaults to 10000 (10 secs). 0 means no timeout.
  • follow: When false, Needle won't follow redirects. Can also be a number or true (the default, 10 max).
  • compressed: Whether to ask for a deflated or gzipped response or not. Defaults to false.
  • decode: Whether to decode response to UTF-8 if Content-Type charset is different. Defaults to true.
  • 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: Forwards request through HTTP proxy. Eg. proxy: 'http://proxy.server.com:3128'

Methods

needle.get(url, [options], callback);
needle.head(url, [options], callback);
needle.post(url, data, [options], callback);
needle.put(url, data, [options], callback);
needle.delete(url, [options], callback);

Callback receives three arguments: (error, response, body)

Examples

GET with querystring

needle.get('http://www.google.com/search?q=syd+barrett', function(err, resp, body){
  if(!err && resp.statusCode == 200)
    console.log(body); // prints HTML
});

HTTPS GET with Basic Auth

needle.get('https://api.server.com', { username: 'you', password: 'secret' },
  function(err, resp, body){
    // used HTTP auth
});

More options

var options = {
  timeout: false,
  compressed : true,
  parse: true,
  headers: {
    'X-Custom-Header': "Bumbaway atuna"
  }
}

needle.get('server.com/posts.json', options, function(err, resp, body){
  // Needle prepends 'http://' to the URL if not found
});

GET through proxy

needle.get('http://search.npmjs.org', { proxy: 'http://localhost:1234' }, function(err, resp, body){
  // request passed through proxy
});

Simple POST

needle.post('https://my.app.com/endpoint', 'foo=bar', function(err, resp, body){
  // you can pass params as a string or as an object
});

PUT with data object

var nested = {
  params: {
    are: {
      also: 'supported'
    }
  }
}

needle.put('https://api.app.com/v2', nested, function(err, resp, body){
  // if you don't pass any data, needle will throw an exception.
});

File upload using multipart, passing file path

var data = {
  foo: 'bar',
  image: { file: '/home/tomas/linux.png', content_type: 'image/png' }
}

needle.post('http://my.other.app.com', data, { multipart: true }, function(err, resp, body){
  // needle will read the file and include it in the form-data as binary
});

Multipart POST, passing data buffer

var buffer = fs.readFileSync('/path/to/package.zip');
var data = {
  zip_file: {
    buffer: buffer,
    filename: 'mypackage.zip',
    content_type: 'application/octet-stream'
  },
}

needle.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.
});

Multipart with custom Content-Type

var data = {
  token: 'verysecret',
  payload: {
    value: JSON.stringify({ title: 'test', version: 1 }),
    content_type: 'application/json'
  }
}

needle.post('http://test.com/', data, { timeout: 5000, multipart: true }, function(err, resp, body){
  // in this case, if the request takes more than 5 seconds
  // the callback will return a [Socket closed] error
});

Credits

Written by Tomás Pollak, with the help of contributors.

(c) 2012 Fork Ltd. Licensed under the MIT license.