HTTP GET Request in Node js Express

Question

How can I make an HTTP request from within Node js or Express js  I need to connect to another service  I am hoping the call is asynchronous and that the callback contains the remote server s response

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Unirest is the best library I ve come across for making HTTP requests from Node   It s aiming at being a multiplatform framework  so learning how it works on Node will serve you well if you need to use an HTTP client on Ruby  PHP  Java  Python  Objective C   Net or Windows 8 as well   As far as I can tell the unirest libraries are mostly backed by existing HTTP clients  e g  on Java  the Apache HTTP client  on Node  Mikeal s Request libary  - Unirest just puts a nicer API on top   Here are a couple of code examples for Node js   var unirest   require  unirest       GET a resource unirest get  http   httpbin org get      query   foo    bar       query   stack    overflow       end function res        if  res error          console log  GET error   res error        else         console log  GET response   res body                 POST a form with an attached file unirest post  http   httpbin org post      field  foo    bar      field  stack    overflow      attach  myfile    examples js      end function res        if  res error          console log  POST error   res error        else         console log  POST response   res body               You can jump straight to the Node docs here

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Here is a snippet of some code from a sample of mine  It s asynchronous and returns a JSON object   It can do any form of GET request   Note that there are more optimal ways  just a sample  - for example  instead of concatenating the chunks you put into an array and join it etc    Hopefully  it gets you started in the right direction   const http   require  http    const https   require  https            getJSON   RESTful GET request returning JSON object s      param options  http options object     param callback  callback to pass the results JSON object s  back      module exports getJSON    options  onResult    gt      console log  rest  getJSON      const port   options port    443   https   http     let output          const req   port request options   res    gt        console log    options host      res statusCode         res setEncoding  utf8         res on  data    chunk    gt          output    chunk               res on  end        gt          let obj   JSON parse output          onResult res statusCode  obj                    req on  error    err    gt           res send  error      err message            req end          It s called by creating an options object like   const options       host   somesite com     port  443    path    some path     method   GET     headers         Content-Type    application json           And providing a callback function   For example  in a service  I require the REST module above and then do this   rest getJSON options   statusCode  result    gt         I could work with the resulting HTML JSON here  I could also just return it   console log  onResult     statusCode   n n  JSON stringify result         res statusCode   statusCode     res send result         UPDATE  If you re looking for async await  linear  no callback   promises  compile time support and intellisense  we created a lightweight HTTP and REST client that fits that bill   Microsoft typed-rest-client

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If you ever need to send GET request to an IP as well as a Domain  Other answers did not mention you can specify a port variable   you can make use of this function   function getCode host  port  path  queryString        console log       host         port   path          Running httpHelper getCode             Construct url and query string     const requestUrl   url parse url format           protocol   http           hostname  host          pathname  path          port  port          query  queryString               console log       host   path          Sending GET request          Send request     console log url format requestUrl       http get url format requestUrl    resp    gt            let data                   A chunk of data has been received          resp on  data    chunk    gt                console log  GET chunk      chunk               data    chunk                          The whole response has been received  Print out the result          resp on  end        gt                console log  GET end of response      data                       on  error    err    gt            console log  GET Error      err               Don t miss requiring modules at the top of your file   http   require  http    url   require  url     Also bare in mind that you may use https module for communicating over secured network  so these two lines would change   https   require  https        https get url format requestUrl    resp    gt

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Use reqclient  not designed for scripting purpose like request or many other libraries  Reqclient allows in the constructor specify many configurations useful when you need to reuse the same configuration again and again  base URL  headers  auth options  logging options  caching  etc  Also has useful features like query and URL parsing  automatic query encoding and JSON parsing  etc   The best way to use the library is create a module to export the object pointing to the API and the necessary configurations to connect with   Module client js   let RequestClient   require  reqclient   RequestClient  let client   new RequestClient     baseUrl   https   myapp com api v1     cache  true    auth   user   admin   pass   secret       module exports   client   And in the controllers where you need to consume the API use like this   let client   require  client     let router        router get   dashboard    req  res    gt         Simple GET with Promise handling to https   myapp com api v1 reports clients   client get  reports clients        then response   gt           console log  Report for client   response userId      REST responses are parsed as JSON objects        res render  clients dashboard    title   Customer Report   report  response               catch err   gt          console error  Ups    err        res status 400  render  error    error  err              router get   orders    req  res  next    gt         GET with query  https   myapp com api v1 orders state open amp limit 10    client get   uri    orders    query     state    open    limit   10         then orders   gt          res render  clients orders    title   Customer Orders   orders  orders               catch err   gt  someErrorHandler req  res  next       router delete   orders    req  res  next    gt         DELETE with params  https   myapp com api v1 orders 1234 A987    client delete        uri    orders  client   id         params     client    A987    id   1234          then resp   gt  res status 204      catch err   gt  someErrorHandler req  res  next        reqclient supports many features  but it has some that are not supported by other libraries  OAuth2 integration and logger integration with cURL syntax  and always returns native Promise objects

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This version is based on the initially proposed by bryanmac function which uses promises  better error handling  and is rewritten in ES6  let http   require  quot http quot        https   require  quot https quot           getJSON   REST get request returning JSON object s     param options  http options object    exports getJSON   function  options        console log  rest  getJSON        let reqHandler    options port     443   https   http       return new Promise  resolve  reject    gt            let req   reqHandler request options   res    gt                let output                   console log  rest     options host         res statusCode               res setEncoding  utf8                 res on  data   function  chunk                    output    chunk                               res on  end        gt                    try                       let obj   JSON parse output                          console log  rest     obj                       resolve                           statusCode  res statusCode                          data  obj                                                           catch  err                        console error  rest  end   err                       reject err                                                          req on  error    err    gt                console error  rest  request   err               reject err                        req end                As a result you don t have to pass in a callback function  instead getJSON   returns a promise  In the following example the function is used inside of an ExpressJS route handler router get    id    req  res  next    gt        rest getJSON           host  host          path    posts   req params id            method   GET         then    statusCode  data      gt            res json data           error    gt            next error                On error it delegates the error to the server error handling middleware

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Try using the simple http get options  callback  function in node js   var http   require  http    var options       host   www google com     path    index html      var req   http get options  function res      console log  STATUS      res statusCode     console log  HEADERS      JSON stringify res headers          Buffer the body entirely for processing as a whole    var bodyChunks         res on  data   function chunk           You can process streamed parts here        bodyChunks push chunk        on  end   function         var body   Buffer concat bodyChunks       console log  BODY      body             and or process the entire body here            req on  error   function e      console log  ERROR      e message         There is also a general http request options  callback  function which allows you to specify the request method and other request details

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If you just need to make simple get requests and don t need support for any other HTTP methods take a look at  simple-get   var get   require  simple-get     get  http   example com   function  err  res      if  err  throw err    console log res statusCode      200   res pipe process stdout       res  is a stream

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You can also use Requestify  a really cool and very simple HTTP client I wrote for nodeJS   it supports caching   Just do the following for GET method request   var requestify   require  requestify     requestify get  http   example com api resource      then function response             Get the response body  JSON parsed or jQuery object for XMLs        response getBody

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Check out shred   It s a node HTTP client created and maintained by spire io that handles redirects  sessions  and JSON responses   It s great for interacting with rest APIs   See this blog post for more details

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Request and Superagent are pretty good libraries to use   note  request is deprecated  use at your risk   Using request   var request require  request     request get  https   someplace  options function err res body     if err    TODO  handle err   if res statusCode     200     etc     TODO Do something with response

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you can use request module and promise in express to make any request    const promise                         require  promise    const requestModule                   require  request     const curlRequest   requestOption    gt       return new Promise  resolve  reject   gt            requestModule requestOption   error  response  body    gt                try                   if  error                        throw error                                    if  body                         try                           body    body    JSON parse body    body                          resolve body                        catch error                           resolve body                                            else                        throw new Error  something wrong                                    catch  error                     reject error                                       const option         url   uri      method    GET       headers                 curlRequest option  then  data   gt      catch  err   gt

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Check out httpreq  it s a node library I created because I was frustrated there was no simple http GET or POST module out there  -

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