imclab/got

Simplified HTTP/HTTPS requests

A nicer interface to the built-in http module.

It supports following redirects, promises, streams, automagically handling gzip/deflate and some convenience options.

Created because request is bloated (several megabytes!).

Install

$ npm install --save got

Usage

var got = require('got');

// Callback mode
got('todomvc.com', function (err, data, res) {
	console.log(data);
	//=> '<!doctype html> ...'
});

// Promise mode
got('todomvc.com')
	.then(function (res) {
		console.log(res.body);
	})
	.catch(function (err) {
		console.error(err);
		console.error(err.response && err.response.body);
	});

// Stream mode
got.stream('todomvc.com').pipe(fs.createWriteStream('index.html'));

// For POST, PUT and PATCH methods got.stream returns a WritableStream
fs.createReadStream('index.html').pipe(got.stream.post('todomvc.com'));

API

It's a GET request by default, but can be changed in options.

got(url, [options], [callback])

url

Required
Type: string, object

The URL to request or a http.request options object.

Properties from options will override properties in the parsed url.

options

Type: object

Any of the http.request options.

body

Type: string, Buffer, ReadableStream, Object

This is mutually exclusive with stream mode.

Body that will be sent with a POST request.

If present in options and options.method is not set, options.method will be set to POST.

If content-length or transfer-encoding is not set in options.headers and body is a string or buffer, content-length will be set to the body length.

If body is a plain Object, it will be stringified with querystring.stringify and sent as application/x-www-form-urlencoded.

encoding

Type: string, null
Default: 'utf8'

Encoding to be used on setEncoding of the response data. If null, the body is returned as a Buffer.

json

Type: boolean
Default: false

This is mutually exclusive with stream mode.

Parse response body with JSON.parse and set accept header to application/json.

query

Type: string, object

Query string object that will be added to the request URL. This will override the query string in url.

timeout

Type: number

Milliseconds after which the request will be aborted and an error event with ETIMEDOUT code will be emitted.

callback(error, data, response)

Function to be called, when error or data received. If omitted, a promise will be returned.

error

Error object with HTTP status code as statusCode property.

data

The data you requested.

response

The response object.

When in stream mode, you can listen for events:

.on('request', request)

request event to get the request object of the request.

.on('response', response)

response event to get the response object of the final request.

.on('redirect', response, nextOptions)

redirect event to get the response object of a redirect. Second argument is options for the next request to the redirect location.

.on('error', error, body, response)

error event emitted in case of protocol error (like ENOTFOUND etc.) or status error (4xx or 5xx). Second argument is body of server response in case of status error. Third argument is response object.

got.get(url, [options], [callback])

got.post(url, [options], [callback])

got.put(url, [options], [callback])

got.patch(url, [options], [callback])

got.head(url, [options], [callback])

got.delete(url, [options], [callback])

Sets options.method to the method name and makes a request.

Errors

Each error contains (if available) host, hostname, method and path properties to make debug easier.

got.RequestError

When a request fails. Contains a code property with error class code, like ECONNREFUSED.

got.ReadError

When reading from response stream fails.

got.ParseError

When json option is enabled and JSON.parse fails.

got.HTTPError

When server response code is not 2xx. Contains statusCode and statusMessage.

got.MaxRedirectsError

When server redirects you more than 10 times.

Proxy

You can use the tunnel module with the agent option to work with proxies:

var got = require('got');
var tunnel = require('tunnel');

got('todomvc.com', {
	agent: tunnel.httpOverHttp({
		proxy: {
			host: 'localhost'
		}
	})
}, function () {});

Tip

It's a good idea to set the 'user-agent' header so the provider can more easily see how their resource is used. By default it's the URL to this repo.

var got = require('got');

got('todomvc.com', {
	headers: {
		'user-agent': 'https://github.com/your-username/repo-name'
	}
}, function () {});

Node 0.10.x

It is a known issue with old good Node 0.10.x http.Agent and agent.maxSockets, which is set to 5. This can cause low performance and in rare cases deadlocks. To avoid this you can set it manually:

require('http').globalAgent.maxSockets = Infinity;
require('https').globalAgent.maxSockets = Infinity;

This should only ever be done if you have Node version 0.10.x and at the top-level app layer.

gh-got - Convenience wrapper for interacting with the GitHub API

Created by


Sindre Sorhus	Vsevolod Strukchinsky

imclab / got