Request-Extra

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:

• 👷‍♂️ Follow request API;
• 📦 The single dependency on node-libcurl package;
• 😎 IDNs support (internationalized domain names);
• 😎 Repeat (built-in retries) request of connection was broken;
• 😎 Send GET/POST with custom body and headers;
• 😎 Follow or deny redirects;
• 💪 Bulletproof design, during development we plan to avoid complex solutions.

Install:

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

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

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

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. Use on your own risk or wait for stable v1.0.0.

API:

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

const opts = {
  method: 'GET', // POST, GET
  uri: '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
};

// Promise API v1
const promise = request(opts);

// Promise API v2
request(opts).then((resp) => {
  const { statusCode, body, headers } = resp;
}).catch((error) => {
  const { errorCode, code, statusCode, message } = error;
});

// Async/Await
async function get (opts) {
  const { statusCode, body, headers } = await request(opts);
  return body;
}

// Callback API
request(opts, (error, resp) => {
  if (error) {
    const { errorCode, code, statusCode, message } = error;
  } else {
    const { statusCode, body, headers } = resp;
  }
});

Request options:

• 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. If set to POST, Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded HTTP header would be set;
• opts.auth {String} - [Optional] value for HTTP Authorization header as plain string;
• opts.form {String|Object} - [Optional] Custom request body for POST request;
• 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' };
• 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, 510];
• opts.isBadStatus {Function} - [Optional] Function responsible for triggering request retries, default: see at the bottom of examples section;
• opts.rawBody and opts.noStorage {Boolean} - Disable all data processing, great option for piping, default: false;
• opts.wait {Boolean} - Disable all data processing, great option for piping, 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 continue if SSL/TLS certificate can't be validated? Default: false.

Note: When using opts.rawBody or opts.noStorage callback/promise won't return body and headers, to get headers and body use next events:

let _body     = Buffer.from('');
let _headers  = Buffer.from('');

const promise = request({
  uri: 'https://example.com',
  rawBody: true,
  wait: true
}).then((status) => {
  const body = _body.toString('utf8');
  const headers = _headers.toString('utf8');
});

promise.request.on('data', (chunkAsBuffer) => {
  _body = Buffer.concat([_body, chunkAsBuffer]);
});

promise.request.on('header', (chunkAsBuffer) => {
  _headers = Buffer.concat([_headers, chunkAsBuffer]);
});

promise.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 extended {Promise} Object:

const request = require('request-extra');
const promise = request({uri: 'https://example.com'});

• promise.abort() - Abort current request, request will return 499: Client Closed Request HTTP error
• promise.send() - Send request, useful with wait and rawBody, when you need to delay sending request, for example to set event listeners
• promise.request {ClientRequest} - See node-libcurl docs
• promise.then(resp) - Callback triggered on successful response
  • 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
• promise.catch(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:

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

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

// Simple POST:
request({
  method: 'POST',
  uri: 'https://example.com',
  form: JSON.stringify({ myForm: 'data' })
}, (error, resp) => {
  /* ... */
});

// POST request with Authorization:
request({
  method: 'POST',
  uri: 'https://example.com',
  auth: 'username:passwd',
  form: JSON.stringify({ myForm: 'data' })
}, (error, resp) => {
  /* ... */
});

// 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;
};

Running Tests

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

# TBD

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