cURL equivalent in Node.js?

Question

See the documentation for the HTTP module for a full example:

https://nodejs.org/api/http.html#http_http_request_options_callback

The http module that you use to run servers is also used to make remote requests.

Here's the example in their docs:

var http = require("http");

var options = {
  host: 'www.google.com',
  port: 80,
  path: '/upload',
  method: 'POST'
};

var req = http.request(options, function(res) {
  console.log('STATUS: ' + res.statusCode);
  console.log('HEADERS: ' + JSON.stringify(res.headers));
  res.setEncoding('utf8');
  res.on('data', function (chunk) {
    console.log('BODY: ' + chunk);
  });
});

req.on('error', function(e) {
  console.log('problem with request: ' + e.message);
});

// write data to request body
req.write('data\n');
req.write('data\n');
req.end();

you can easily use request module:

https://www.npmjs.com/package/request

Sample code:

var request = require('request');
request('http://www.google.com', function (error, response, body) {
  if (!error && response.statusCode == 200) {
    console.log(body) // Show the HTML for the Google homepage. 
  }
  else {
    console.log("Error "+response.statusCode)
  }
})

Since looks like node-curl is dead, I've forked it, renamed, and modified to be more curl like and to compile under Windows.

node-libcurl

Usage example:

var Curl = require( 'node-libcurl' ).Curl;

var curl = new Curl();

curl.setOpt( Curl.option.URL, 'www.google.com' );
curl.setOpt( 'FOLLOWLOCATION', true );

curl.on( 'end', function( statusCode, body, headers ) {

    console.info( statusCode );
    console.info( '---' );
    console.info( body.length );
    console.info( '---' );
    console.info( headers );
    console.info( '---' );
    console.info( this.getInfo( Curl.info.TOTAL_TIME ) );

    this.close();
});

curl.on( 'error', function( err, curlErrorCode ) {

    console.error( err.message );
    console.error( '---' );
    console.error( curlErrorCode );

    this.close();

});

curl.perform();

Perform is async, and there is no way to use it synchronous currently (and probably will never have).

It's still in alpha, but this is going to change soon, and help is appreciated.

Now it's possible to use Easy handle directly for sync requests, example:

var Easy = require( 'node-libcurl' ).Easy,
    Curl = require( 'node-libcurl' ).Curl,
    url = process.argv[2] || 'http://www.google.com',
    ret, ch;

ch = new Easy();

ch.setOpt( Curl.option.URL, url );

ch.setOpt( Curl.option.HEADERFUNCTION, function( buf, size, nmemb ) {

    console.log( buf );

    return size * nmemb;
});

ch.setOpt( Curl.option.WRITEFUNCTION, function( buf, size, nmemb ) {

    console.log( arguments );

    return size * nmemb;
});

// this call is sync!
ret = ch.perform();

ch.close();

console.log( ret, ret == Curl.code.CURLE_OK, Easy.strError( ret ) );

Also, the project is stable now!

EDIT:

For new projects please refrain from using request, since now the project is in maitainance mode, and will eventually be deprecated

https://github.com/request/request/issues/3142

Instead i would recommend Axios, the library is in line with Node latest standards, and there are some available plugins to enhance it, enabling mock server responses, automatic retries and other features.

https://github.com/axios/axios

const axios = require('axios');

// Make a request for a user with a given ID
axios.get('/user?ID=12345')
  .then(function (response) {
    // handle success
    console.log(response);
  })
  .catch(function (error) {
    // handle error
    console.log(error);
  })
  .then(function () {
    // always executed
  });

Or using async / await:

try{
    const response = await axios.get('/user?ID=12345');
    console.log(response)
} catch(axiosErr){
    console.log(axiosErr)
}

---

I usually use REQUEST, its a simplified but powerful HTTP client for Node.js

https://github.com/request/request

Its on NPM npm install request

Here is a usage sample:

var request = require('request');

request('http://www.google.com', function (error, response, body) {
   if (!error && response.statusCode == 200) {
       console.log(body) // Show the HTML for the Google homepage.
   }
})

well if you really need a curl equivalent you can try node-curl

npm install node-curl

you will probably need to add libcurl4-gnutls-dev.