colin-alexander-dmfa / fetch-json

🐶 A wrapper around Fetch just for JSON

fetch-json

A wrapper around Fetch just for JSON

Why would you fetch anything but json? ;)

1) Make REST easy

fetch-json automatically:

1. Converts the HTTP response to JSON if it's not already JSON (especially convenient for HTTP errors)
2. Serializes the body payload with JSON.stringify()
3. Adds the application/json HTTP header to set the data type
4. Appends the GET params object items to the URL
5. Runs .json() on the response
6. Sets credentials to 'same-origin' (support user sessions in Grails, Rails, PHP, Django, Flask, etc.)

fetch-json is ideal for a JAMstack architecture where "dynamic programming during the request/response cycle is handled by JavaScript, running entirely on the client".

2) Setup

Browser

In a web page:

<script src=fetch-json.min.js></script>

or from the jsdelivr.com CDN:

<script src=https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/fetch-json@2.2/dist/fetch-json.min.js></script>

node

Install package:

$ npm install node-fetch fetch-json

and then import:

const fetchJson = require('fetch-json');

3) Examples

HTTP GET

Fetch the NASA Astronomy Picture of the Day:

// NASA APoD
const url =    'https://api.nasa.gov/planetary/apod';
const params = { api_key: 'DEMO_KEY' };
const handleData = (data) =>
   console.log('The NASA APoD for today is at: ' + data.url);
fetchJson.get(url, params).then(handleData);

HTTP POST

Create a resource for the planet Jupiter:

// Create Jupiter
const resource = { name: 'Jupiter', position: 5 };
const handleData = (data) =>
   console.log('Planet:', data);  //http response body as an object literal
fetchJson.post('https://httpbin.org/post', resource)
   .then(handleData)
   .catch(console.error);

For more examples, see the Mocha specification cases:
spec-node.js (Mocha output on Travis CI)

To see a website that incorporates fetch-json, check out DataDashboard:
data-dashboard.js.org 📊

4) Leverages the Fetch API and node-fetch

fetch-json calls the native Fetch API if in a web browser and calls node-fetch if running on node.

For comparison, the above POST example in section 2 to create a planet would be done calling the Fetch API directly with the code:

// Create Jupiter (WITHOUT fetch-json)
const resource = { name: 'Jupiter', position: 5 };
const options = {
   method: 'POST',
   headers: {
      'Content-Type': 'application/json',
      'Accept': 'application/json'
      },
   body: JSON.stringify(resource)
   };
const handleData = (data) =>
   console.log(data);  //http response body as an object literal
fetch('https://httpbin.org/post', options)
   .then(response => response.json())
   .then(handleData)
   .catch(console.error);

The example with fetch-json and the example without fetch-json each produce the same output.

5) API

API — HTTP Request

The format for using fetch-json is:

GET

fetchJson.get(url, params, options).then(callback);

POST

fetchJson.post(url, resource, options).then(callback);

PUT

fetchJson.put(url, resource, options).then(callback);

PATCH

fetchJson.patch(url, resource, options).then(callback);

DELETE

fetchJson.delete(url, resource, options).then(callback);

Notes:

1. Only the url parameter is required.  The other parameters are optional.
2. The params object for fetchJson.get() is converted into a query string and appended to the url.
3. The resource object is turned into the body of the HTTP request.
4. The options parameter is passed through to the Fetch API (see the init documentation on MDN).
5. options is enhanced with a boolean setting for strictErrors mode (default false) that throws an error to .catch() whenever the HTTP response status is 400 or higher.

Dynamic HTTP method

If you need to programmatically set the method, use the format:

fetchJson.request(method, url, data, options).then(callback);

Where method is 'GET', 'POST', 'PUT', 'PATCH', or 'DELETE', and data represents either params or resource.

API — Logging

Enable basic logging to the console with:

fetchJson.enableLogger();

To use a custom logger, pass in a function that accepts 9 parameters to log. To disable logging, pass in false.

To get an array containing the names of the parameters:

fetchJson.getLogHeaders();

The default console output looks like:
2018-09-12T07:20:12.372Z – "request" - "GET" – "api.nasa.gov" – "https://api.nasa.gov/planetary/apod"
2018-09-12T07:20:13.009Z – "response" - "GET" – "api.nasa.gov" – "https://api.nasa.gov/planetary/apod" - true - 200 - "OK" - "application/json"

6) Response text converted to JSON

The HTTP response body is considered to be JSON if the Content-Type is "application/json" or "text/javascript".  If the HTTP response body is not JSON, fetch-json passes back through the promise an object with a bodyText string field containing response body text.

In addition to the bodyText field, the object will have the fields: ok, status, statusText, and contentType.

For example, an HTTP response for an error status of 500 would be converted to an object similar to:

{
   ok:          false,
   status:      500,
   statusText:  'INTERNAL SERVER ERROR',
   contentType: 'text/html; charset=utf-8',
   bodyText:    '<!doctype html><html lang=en><body>Server Error</body></html>'
}

With fetch-json, you know the response body will always be passed back to you as a simple object literal.

7) Legacy web browsers

To support really old browsers, include polyfills for Promise and Fetch API:

<script src=https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/promise-polyfill@8.1/dist/polyfill.min.js></script>
<script src=https://cdn.jsdelivr.net/npm/whatwg-fetch@3.0/dist/fetch.umd.min.js></script>

Note: JSDOM does not include fetch, so you need to add a polyfill.  See usage of whatwg-fetch in spec/jsdom.js and gulpfile.js.

8) Contributor Notes

To be a contributor, fork the project and run the commands npm install and npm test on your local clone.  Make your edits and rerun the tests.  Pull requests welcome.

Pull requests (PRs) should not update the version number in package.json or any files in the dist folder.  The version number and dist files are all updated as part of the release process.

Issues labeled "good first issue" make it easy for first time contributors to participate.  Only submit a PR for one of these issues if you're new to this project.

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"Stop trying to make fetch happen without #fetchJson!"

Feel free to submit questions at:
github.com/center-key/fetch-json/issues

MIT License