JSPM

  • Created
  • Published
  • Downloads 228910
  • Score
    100M100P100Q165135F
  • License MIT

Help in opening URLs (mostly HTTP) in a complex world — basic and digest authentication, redirections, timeout and more. Base undici API.

Package Exports

  • urllib
  • urllib/package.json

Readme

urllib

NPM version Node.js CI Test coverage Known Vulnerabilities npm download

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 false.
    • 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

Contributors

Made with contributors-img.