gohttp

A simple to use golang http client

Features

• All HTTP methods support: GET/HEAD/POST/PUT/PATCH/DELETE/OPTIONS
• Easy to set HTTP Headers
• Query strings can be added through key-value pairs or struct easily
• Extend url path whenever you want
• Send form and json data in one line
• Basic Auth right away
• Read from response the easy way
• Support proxy configuration
• Allow set timeout at all levels
• Automatically retry request, if you let it
• Custom redirect policy
• Perform hook functions
• Session support, persistent response data, and reuse them in next request
• More to come ...

Principles

• Simple: the exposed interface should be simple and intuitive. After all, this is why gohttp is created
• Consistent: Derived from net/http, gohttp tries to keep consistent with it as much as possible
• Fully-Documented: along with the simple interface, documents and examples will be given to demostrate the full usage, pitfalls and best practices

Install

go get github.com/cizixs/gohttp

And then import the package in your code:

import "github.com/cizixs/gohttp"

Usage

Get a resource from url

gohttp provides shortcut to make simple GET quite straightforward:

resp, err := gohttp.Get("https://api.github.com/users/cizixs")

The above does the same thing as:

resp, err := gohttp.New().Get("https://api.github.com/users/cizixs")

In fact, this is exactly what it does behind the scene. gohttp.New() returns gohttp.Client struct, which gives you full control of the request which be sent.

Create url path on the fly

If url path can not decided until runtime or you want it be flexible, Path() method is here to help:

resp, err := gohttp.New().Path("/repos").Path("cizixs/gohttp/").Path("issues").Get("https://api.github.com/")

Or simply in one method:

resp, err := gohttp.New().Path("/repos", "cizixs/gohttp/", "issues").Get("https://api.github.com/")

Notice how gohttp handles the slash / appropriately no matter where it is placed(or not placed at all).

Pass arguments(query string) in URLs

There are often times you want to include query strings in url, handling this issue manually can be tiresome and boring. Not with gohttp:

gohttp.New().Path("/repos", "cizixs/gohttp/", "issues").
    Query("state", "open").Query("sort", "updated").Query("mentioned", "cizixs").
    Get("https://api.github.com/")

Think this is tedious too? Here comes the better part, you can pass a struct as query strings:

type issueOption struct {
	State     string `json:"state,omitempty"`
	Assignee  string `json:"assignee,omitempty"`
	Creator   string `json:"creator,omitempty"`
	Mentioned string `json:"mentioned,omitempty"`
	Labels    string `json:"labels,omitempty"`
	Sort      string `json:"sort,omitempty"`
	Rirection string `json:"direction,omitempty"`
	Since     string `json:"since,omitempty"`
}

i := &issueOption{
	State:     "open",
	Mentioned: "cizixs",
	Sort:      "updated",
}
resp, err := gohttp.New().Path("/repos", "cizixs/gohttp/", "issues").QueryStruct(i).Get("https://api.github.com/")

Custom Headers

gohttp.New().Header(key, value).Header(key, value).Get(url)

Or, simply pass all headers in a map:

gohttp.New().Headers(map[string]string).Get(url)

Post and PUT

Not only GET is simple, gohttp implements all other methods:

body := strings.NewReader("hello, gohttp!")
gohttp.New().Body(body).Post("https://httpbin.org/post")
gohttp.New().Body(body).Put("https://httpbin.org/put")

NOTE: The actual data sent is based on HTTP method the request finally fires. Anything not compliant with that METHOD will be ommited. For example, set data to a GET request has no effect, because it will not be used at all.

Post all kinds of data

When comes to sending data to server, POST might be the most frequently used method. Of all user cases, send form data and send json data comes to the top. gohttp tries to make these actions easy:

// send Form data
gohttp.New().Form("username", "cizixs").Form("password", "secret").Post("https://somesite.com/login")

// send json data
gohttp.New().Json(`{"Name":"Cizixs"}`).Post(url)         // use a marshalled json string

struct User{
    Name string `json:"name,omitempty"`
    Age int `json:"age,omitempty"`
}

user := &User{Name: "cizixs", Age: 22}
gohttp.New().JsonStruct(user).Post(url)   // use a struct and parse it to json

Basic Auth

gohttp.New().BasicAuth("username", "password").Get("https://api.github.com/users/")

Timeout

By default, net/http does not have timeout, will wait forever until response is returned. This can be a serious issue if server hangs, gohttp allows you to set a timeout limit, if response does not finish in time, an error will be returned.

gohttp.New().Timeout(100*time.Millisecond).Get()

Upload file(s)

Upload files is simple too, multiple files can be uploaded in one request.

f, _ := os.Open(filePath)
gohttp.New().File(f io.Reader, "filename", "fieldname").Post(url)

Proxy

If you are sending request behind a proxy, you can do this:

gohttp.New().Proxy("http://127.0.0.1:4567").Get("http://target.com/cool")

Cookies

Access cookie from response is simple:

cookies := resp.Cookies()

gohttp.New().Cookie(cookie *http.Cookie).Cookie(cookie *http.Cookie).Get(url)

Response data as string

If the response contains string data, you can read it by:

resp, _ := gohttp.New().Get("http://someurl.com")
data, _ := resp.AsString()

Response data as bytes

If the response contains raw bytes, you can read it by:

resp, _ := gohttp.New().Get("http://someurl.com")
data, _ := resp.AsBytes()

Response data as json struct

If the response contains json struct, you can pass a struct to it, and gohttp will marshall it for you:

user := &User{}
resp, _ := gohttp.New().Get("http://someurl.com")
err := resp.AsJSON(user)