Request – A Node.js Module You Should Know About

Hey everyone! This is the fourth post in my new node.js modules you should know about article series.

The first post was about dnode - the freestyle rpc library for node, the second was about optimist - the lightweight options parser for node, the third was about lazy - lazy lists for node.

This time I'll introduce you to a very awesome module called request by Mikeal Rogers. Request is the swiss army knife of HTTP streaming.

Check this out:

var fs = require('fs')
var request = require('request');

request('http://google.com/doodle.png').pipe(fs.createWriteStream('doodle.png'))

Pow! You just streamed the response of HTTP request to http://google.com/doodle.png into doodle.png local file!

Here is more awesome stuff:

var fs = require('fs')
var request = require('request');

fs.readStream('file.json').pipe(request.put('http://mysite.com/obj.json'))

Pow! It streamed your local file file.json to http://mysite.com/obj.json as HTTP PUT request!

var request = require('request');

request.get('http://google.com/img.png').pipe(request.put('http://mysite.com/img.png'))

Pow! This just streamed a HTTP GET from http://google.com/img.png to HTTP PUT to http://mysite.com/img.png.

At Browserling we use this module for streaming data to and from couchdb. Here is an example that saves a JSON document at mikeal's test couchdb:

var request = require('request')
var rand = Math.floor(Math.random()*100000000).toString()

request({
  method: 'PUT',
  uri: 'http://mikeal.iriscouch.com/testjs/' + rand,
  multipart: [
    {
      'content-type': 'application/json',
      'body': JSON.stringify({
        foo: 'bar',
        _attachments: {
          'message.txt': {
            follows: true,
            length: 18,
            'content_type': 'text/plain'
           }
         }
       })
    },
    { body: 'I am an attachment' }
  ] 
}, function (error, response, body) {
  if(response.statusCode == 201){
    console.log('document saved as: http://mikeal.iriscouch.com/testjs/'+ rand);
  } else {
    console.log('error: '+ response.statusCode);
    console.log(body);
  }
})

Install it via npm, as always:

npm install request

See ya!