Calling a JSON API with Node js

Question

I am trying to get the facebook profile picture of the user logged into my application  Facebook s API states that http   graph facebook com 517267866  fields picture returns the correct URL as a JSON object    I want to get the URL to the picture out of my code  I tried the following but I am missing something here    var url    http   graph facebook com 517267866  fields picture     http get url  function res          var fbResponse   JSON parse res        console log  Got response      fbResponse picture          on  error   function e          console log  Got error      e message          Running this code results in the following   undefined 1    SyntaxError  Unexpected token o     at Object parse  native

User · Answer

I think that for simple HTTP requests like this it s better to use the request module  You need to install it with npm  npm install request  and then your code can look like this   const request   require  request         url    http   graph facebook com 517267866  fields picture   request url   error  response  body   gt      if   error  amp  amp  response statusCode     200        const fbResponse   JSON parse body      console log  Got a response     fbResponse picture      else       console log  Got an error     error     status code     response statusCode

User · Answer

Another solution is to user axios   npm install axios   Code will be like   const url      this env someMicroservice address  v1 my-end-point    const   data     await axios get lt MyInterface gt  url      auth        username  this env auth user      password  this env auth pass          return data

User · Answer

Problems with other answers    unsafe JSON parse no response code checking   All of the answers here use JSON parse   in an unsafe way  You should always put all calls to JSON parse   in a try catch block especially when you parse JSON coming from an external source  like you do here   You can use request to parse the JSON automatically which wasn t mentioned here in other answers  There is already an answer using request module but it uses JSON parse   to manually parse JSON - which should always be run inside a try    catch    block to handle errors of incorrect JSON or otherwise the entire app will crash  And incorrect JSON happens  trust me   Other answers that use http also use JSON parse   without checking for exceptions that can happen and crash your application   Below I ll show few ways to handle it safely   All examples use a public GitHub API so everyone can try that code safely   Example with request  Here s a working example with request that automatically parses JSON    use strict   var request   require  request     var url    https   api github com users rsp    request get       url  url      json  true      headers    User-Agent    request         err  res  data    gt        if  err          console log  Error    err         else if  res statusCode     200          console log  Status    res statusCode         else            data is already parsed as JSON        console log data html url               Example with http and try catch  This uses https - just change https to http if you want HTTP connections    use strict   var https   require  https     var options         host   api github com       path    users rsp       headers    User-Agent    request       https get options  function  res        var json           res on  data   function  chunk            json    chunk              res on  end   function              if  res statusCode     200                try                   var data   JSON parse json                      data is available here                  console log data html url                 catch  e                    console log  Error parsing JSON                             else               console log  Status    res statusCode                        on  error   function  err          console log  Error    err         Example with http and tryjson  This example is similar to the above but uses the tryjson module   Disclaimer  I am the author of that module     use strict   var https   require  https    var tryjson   require  tryjson     var options         host   api github com       path    users rsp       headers    User-Agent    request       https get options  function  res        var json            res on  data   function  chunk            json    chunk               res on  end   function              if  res statusCode     200                var data   tryjson parse json               console log data   data html url    Error parsing JSON               else               console log  Status    res statusCode                        on  error   function  err          console log  Error    err         Summary  The example that uses request is the simplest  But if for some reason you don t want to use it then remember to always check the response code and to parse JSON safely

User · Answer

Unirest library simplifies this a lot  If you want to use it  you have to install unirest npm package  Then your code could look like this   unirest get  http   graph facebook com 517267866  fields picture      send      end response  gt        if  response ok          console log  Got a response     response body picture        else         console log  Got an error     response error

User · Answer

I m using get-json very simple to use     npm install get-json --save   Import get-json  var getJSON   require  get-json     To do a GET request you would do something like   getJSON  http   api listenparadise org   function error  response       console log response

User · Answer

The res argument in the http get   callback is not the body  but rather an http ClientResponse object  You need to assemble the body   var url    http   graph facebook com 517267866  fields picture    http get url  function res       var body            res on  data   function chunk           body    chunk               res on  end   function            var fbResponse   JSON parse body           console log  Got a response     fbResponse picture              on  error   function e         console log  Got an error     e

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