How to make remote REST call inside Node.js? any CURL?

Question

Look at http.request

var options = {
  host: url,
  port: 80,
  path: '/resource?id=foo&bar=baz',
  method: 'POST'
};

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);
  });
}).end();

How about using Request — Simplified HTTP client.

Edit February 2020: Request has been deprecated so you probably shouldn't use it any more.

Here's a GET:

var request = require('request');
request('http://www.google.com', function (error, response, body) {
    if (!error && response.statusCode === 200) {
        console.log(body) // Print the google web page.
     }
})

OP also wanted a POST:

request.post('http://service.com/upload', {form:{key:'value'}})

I use node-fetch because it uses the familiar (if you are a web developer) fetch() API. fetch() is the new way to make arbitrary HTTP requests from the browser.

Yes I know this is a node js question, but don't we want to reduce the number of API's developers have to memorize and understand, and improve re-useability of our javascript code? Fetch is a standard so how about we converge on that?

The other nice thing about fetch() is that it returns a javascript Promise, so you can write async code like this:

let fetch = require('node-fetch');

fetch('http://localhost', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {'Content-Type': 'application/json'},
  body: '{}'
}).then(response => {
  return response.json();
}).catch(err => {console.log(err);});

Fetch superseeds XMLHTTPRequest. Here's some more info.

Look at http://isolasoftware.it/2012/05/28/call-rest-api-with-node-js/

var https = require('https');

/**
 * HOW TO Make an HTTP Call - GET
 */
// options for GET
var optionsget = {
    host : 'graph.facebook.com', // here only the domain name
    // (no http/https !)
    port : 443,
    path : '/youscada', // the rest of the url with parameters if needed
    method : 'GET' // do GET
};

console.info('Options prepared:');
console.info(optionsget);
console.info('Do the GET call');

// do the GET request
var reqGet = https.request(optionsget, function(res) {
    console.log("statusCode: ", res.statusCode);
    // uncomment it for header details
    // console.log("headers: ", res.headers);

    res.on('data', function(d) {
        console.info('GET result:\n');
        process.stdout.write(d);
        console.info('\n\nCall completed');
    });

});

reqGet.end();
reqGet.on('error', function(e) {
    console.error(e);
});

/**
 * HOW TO Make an HTTP Call - POST
 */
// do a POST request
// create the JSON object
jsonObject = JSON.stringify({
    "message" : "The web of things is approaching, let do some tests to be ready!",
    "name" : "Test message posted with node.js",
    "caption" : "Some tests with node.js",
    "link" : "http://www.youscada.com",
    "description" : "this is a description",
    "picture" : "http://youscada.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/logo2.png",
    "actions" : [ {
        "name" : "youSCADA",
        "link" : "http://www.youscada.com"
    } ]
});

// prepare the header
var postheaders = {
    'Content-Type' : 'application/json',
    'Content-Length' : Buffer.byteLength(jsonObject, 'utf8')
};

// the post options
var optionspost = {
    host : 'graph.facebook.com',
    port : 443,
    path : '/youscada/feed?access_token=your_api_key',
    method : 'POST',
    headers : postheaders
};

console.info('Options prepared:');
console.info(optionspost);
console.info('Do the POST call');

// do the POST call
var reqPost = https.request(optionspost, function(res) {
    console.log("statusCode: ", res.statusCode);
    // uncomment it for header details
//  console.log("headers: ", res.headers);

    res.on('data', function(d) {
        console.info('POST result:\n');
        process.stdout.write(d);
        console.info('\n\nPOST completed');
    });
});

// write the json data
reqPost.write(jsonObject);
reqPost.end();
reqPost.on('error', function(e) {
    console.error(e);
});

/**
 * Get Message - GET
 */
// options for GET
var optionsgetmsg = {
    host : 'graph.facebook.com', // here only the domain name
    // (no http/https !)
    port : 443,
    path : '/youscada/feed?access_token=you_api_key', // the rest of the url with parameters if needed
    method : 'GET' // do GET
};

console.info('Options prepared:');
console.info(optionsgetmsg);
console.info('Do the GET call');

// do the GET request
var reqGet = https.request(optionsgetmsg, function(res) {
    console.log("statusCode: ", res.statusCode);
    // uncomment it for header details
//  console.log("headers: ", res.headers);


    res.on('data', function(d) {
        console.info('GET result after POST:\n');
        process.stdout.write(d);
        console.info('\n\nCall completed');
    });

});

reqGet.end();
reqGet.on('error', function(e) {
    console.error(e);
});

Axios

An example (axios_example.js) using Axios in Node.js:

const axios = require('axios');
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
const port = process.env.PORT || 5000;

app.get('/search', function(req, res) {
    let query = req.query.queryStr;
    let url = `https://your.service.org?query=${query}`;

    axios({
        method:'get',
        url,
        auth: {
            username: 'the_username',
            password: 'the_password'
        }
    })
    .then(function (response) {
        res.send(JSON.stringify(response.data));
    })
    .catch(function (error) {
        console.log(error);
    });
});

var server = app.listen(port);

Be sure in your project directory you do:

npm init
npm install express
npm install axios
node axios_example.js

You can then test the Node.js REST API using your browser at: http://localhost:5000/search?queryStr=xxxxxxxxx

Similarly you can do post, such as:

axios({
  method: 'post',
  url: 'https://your.service.org/user/12345',
  data: {
    firstName: 'Fred',
    lastName: 'Flintstone'
  }
});

SuperAgent

Similarly you can use SuperAgent.

superagent.get('https://your.service.org?query=xxxx')
.end((err, response) => {
    if (err) { return console.log(err); }
    res.send(JSON.stringify(response.body));
});

And if you want to do basic authentication:

superagent.get('https://your.service.org?query=xxxx')
.auth('the_username', 'the_password')
.end((err, response) => {
    if (err) { return console.log(err); }
    res.send(JSON.stringify(response.body));
});

Ref:

• https://github.com/axios/axios
• https://www.twilio.com/blog/2017/08/http-requests-in-node-js.html

I have been using restler for making webservices call, works like charm and is pretty neat.

To use latest Async/Await features

https://www.npmjs.com/package/request-promise-native

npm install --save request
npm install --save request-promise-native

//code

async function getData (){
    try{
          var rp = require ('request-promise-native');
          var options = {
          uri:'https://reqres.in/api/users/2',
          json:true
        };

        var response = await rp(options);
        return response;
    }catch(error){
        throw error;
    }        
}

try{
    console.log(getData());
}catch(error){
    console.log(error);
}