Node.js comes with both HTTP and HTTPS modules in the standard library. HTTP Client with Node.JS How to perform simple GET and POST requests When building web applications, we often want to make HTTP requests to other services. Let’s get started with the native HTTP(S) option that comes baked in with Node.js as our first example. Unlike the http module, you will have to install this one as a dependency from npm. Node.js has built-in modules to perform many HTTP(S)-related actions, one of which is the ability to make HTTP calls. Node-fetch is a light weight module that brings the browser library window.fetch to Node.js with minimal code. It may take a bit more effort to get the data you want, but is a great utility if you don’t want to add too many dependencies to your codebase or want access to its low level functionality. One other problem is that this module does not support HTTPS by default, so we need to require the https module instead if the API we are using communicates over HTTPS. This is fairly trivial if it is JSON formatted, but it is still an extra step. You also need to parse the response data manually. Some explanations: First, you need to get the net module by calling: const net require ('net') then you need to create the socket in order to connect to the server: const client1 new net. You’re required to receive response data in chunks rather than just providing a callback function to be executed as soon as all of the data is received. Here is the complete code for this example: TCP client code in NodeJS. Much of the HTTP, and the HTTPS, module’s functionality is fairly low-level. The following code will send a GET request to NASA’s API and print out the URL for the astronomy picture of the day as well as an explanation: The downside is that it isn’t very user friendly compared to other solutions. With this module, you can just plug and go without having to install external dependencies. HTTP – the Standard Libraryįirst on our hit parade is the default HTTP module in the standard library. We’ll be using NASA’s Astronomy Picture of the Day API as the JSON API that we are interacting with in all of these examples because space is the coolest thing ever.īefore moving on, make sure you have up to date versions of Node.js and npm installed on your machine. It supports all the native TLS options of Node like rejectUnauthorized, ciphers, secureProtocol, etc. Some notable features are: HTTPS/HTTP requests with the usual methods. Its code base includes only two dependencies and is considered a lightweight library. Let’s take a look at some of the most popular ones. Needle is a streamable and nimble HTTP request client for Node.js. Now use the HTTP object to make a GET request to the API to retrieve a list of users. However, if we are making requests to and from URLs that only have HTTP, then we would use the HTTP module. When it comes to Node.js there are a fair amount of solutions to this problem both built into the language and by the community. HTTPS makes the requests through the Transport Layer Security (TLS/SSL). Making HTTP requests is a core functionality for modern languages and one of the first things many developers learn when acclimating to new environments.
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