creating a tcp socket with net.createConnection(port, [host]) in node.js

Question

Anyone here can give me a few pointers working with sockets in node.js?

can open a tcp connection say on 172.0.0.1 on port 8000 for example using net.createConnection(port, host)

var net = require('net'),
    querystring = require('querystring'),
    http = require('http'),
    port = 8383,
    host = 172.123.321.213,
    path = /path/toService,
    _post = '';

var server = http.createServer(function(req, res) {

    if(req.method == 'POST') {
      req.on('data', function(data) {
        body+=data;
      });
      req.on('end', function() {
        _post = querystring.parse(body);//parser post data
        console.log(_post);
      })
    }

var socket = net.createConnection(port, host);

var socket = net.createConnection(port, host);

    socket.on('error', function(error) {
      send404(res, host, port);
    })

    socket.on('connect', function(connect) {
      console.log('connection established');
      res.writeHead(200, {'content-type' : 'text/html'});
      res.write('<h3>200 OK: 
           Connection to host ' + host + ' established. Pid = ' + process.pid + '</h3>\n');
      res.end();
      var body = '';
      socket._writeQueue.push(_post);

      socket.write(_post);

      console.log(socket);

      socket.on('end', function() {
        console.log('socket closing...')
      })
    })

    socket.setKeepAlive(enable=true, 1000);
  }).listen(8000);

  send404 = function(res, host, port) {
    res.writeHead(404, {'content-type': 'text/html'});
    res.write('<h3>404 Can not establish connection to host: ' + host + ' on port: ' + port + '</h3>\n');
    res.end();
  }

But now I need to send my data to the path defined - if I add the path to host then try connection then connection will fail.

Any ideas?

Thanks in advance

Answer 1

Your "socket" object is just a plain TCP socket which is just a simple bidirectional communication channel. The HTTP methods you're trying to use (e.g. res.writeHead()) don't pertain, so you'll have to write the request manually. Try something like this:

var socket = net.createConnection(port, host);
console.log('Socket created.');
socket.on('data', function(data) {
  // Log the response from the HTTP server.
  console.log('RESPONSE: ' + data);
}).on('connect', function() {
  // Manually write an HTTP request.
  socket.write("GET / HTTP/1.0\r\n\r\n");
}).on('end', function() {
  console.log('DONE');
});