quip

An exploration of a chainable API for response objects in node.

• Suited to quick and easy prototyping
• Works as a Connect filter

Don't consider this a finished product, I'm just trying out some ideas, and thought I'd share what I have. I've been finding it useful to quickly put together APIs that respond with the correct status code and mime type.

Examples

responding with different status codes

res.ok('<h1>Hello World!</h1>');
res.notFound('Not found');

responding with different mime types

res.text('plain text');
res.json({'stringify': 'this object'});

chaining the two together (in any order)

res.error().json({error: 'something broke'});
res.xml().badRequest('<test></test>');

redirection

res.moved('http://permanent/new/location');
res.redirect('http://temporary/new/location');

custom headers

res.headers({'custom': 'header'}).text('some data');

The response is completed when data is passed to a status code or mime-type function, or when a redirect is performed.

Usage

As a Connect filter:

var Connect = require('connect'),
    quip = require('quip'),

Connect.createServer(
    quip(),
    function(req, res, next){
        res.ok('test');
    }
).listen(8080);

Standalone, without Connect:

var quip = require('quip'),
    http = require('http');

http.createServer(function(req, res){
    quip.update(res);
    res.ok('test');
});

API

• headers - add custom headers to response, returns updated response object
• status - set status code of response manually, returns updated response
• send - send data with the status code and headers already set, returns null

Status Codes

By default, the response will have the status code 200 (OK), this can be updated using the following methods. Note that by passing some data to these methods, the response will complete. If you don't pass data it will return an updated response object, allowing you to chain calls together.

Success

• res.ok
• res.created
• res.accepted

Redirection

• res.moved
• res.redirect
• res.found - alias for redirect
• res.notModified

Client Error

• res.badRequest
• res.unauthorized
• res.forbidden
• res.notFound
• res.notAllowed
• res.conflict
• res.gone

Server Error

• res.error

Mime Types

By default, the response will have the mime-type text/html, this can be updated using the following methods. Note that by passing some data to these methods, the response will complete. If you don't pass data it will return an updated response object, allowing you to chain calls together.

• res.text

• res.plain

• res.html

• res.xhtml

• res.css

• res.xml

• res.atom

• res.rss

• res.javascript

• res.json

• res.jsonp -- JSONP is a special case that always completes the request, and overrides any previous status code calls. There is no reliable way for a browser to interpret JSONP responses with a status code other than 200. Any error or status information should be included in the JSONP response itself. The jsonp method accepts 2 arguments, a callback name (string) and some JSON data (either a string or an object literal).