Request-libcurl

npm install --save request-libcurl

This is a server-only package. request-libcurl package was created due to a lack of stability in the Node's http/https ClientRequest and simplicity of fetch modules. Since we've been looking for something tested by decades and generations, — our choice stopped on libcurl. Hence request-libcurl package incorporates stability and performance of libcurl with simplicity of request API

Main features

• 👨‍💻 98% tests coverage + TDD (only for http(s));
• 👷‍♂️ Follow request API (simplified);
• 🚀 Async/Await API + callback API
• 📦 The single dependency on node-libcurl package;
• ㊗️ IDNs support (internationalized domain names);
• 🛡 Repeat (built-in retries) request on failed or broken connection;
• 😎 HTTP/2 support;
• 🤘 HTTP/3 support!
• 🎒 Send GET/POST with custom body and headers;
• 🗂 Pipe to the file;
• 🚦 Follow or deny redirects;
• 📤 Upload files with a single line;
• 🔐 Ignore or deny "broken" SSL/TLS certificates;
• 💪 Bulletproof design, during development we avoid complex solutions.

ToC:

• Installation
• API
• Request options detailed description:
  • response description (success)
  • error description (fail)
  • LibCurlRequest API
• List of default request options
• Examples:
  • GET
  • POST
  • POST (advanced)
  • File download via .pipe()
  • File upload
  • File upload (multipart)
• Known Issues
• Running tests
  • Tests
• Support

Install

# ONLY for node@>=18
npm install request-libcurl --save

# for node@>=16.14 || >=18 || >=20 || >=21 (no async API)
npm install request-libcurl@4.0.0 --save

# for node@^14.14 || >=16 || <16.14 (no async API)
npm install request-libcurl@3.0.0 --save

# for node@>=9.0.0 (no async API)
npm install request-libcurl@2.3.4 --save

// Import
import request, { requestAsync } from 'request-libcurl';

// CommonJS
const { default: request, requestAsync } = require('request-libcurl');
// OR
const request = require('request-libcurl').default;
const requestAsync = require('request-libcurl').requestAsync;

Basic usage

const { status, headers, body } = await requestAsync({ url: 'https://api.example.com/data.json' });

Note

We build this package to serve our needs and solve our issues with Node's native API. It may have a lack of compatibility with request() module API, or be compatible only partially. PRs, suggestions, and discussions are always welcome.

API

import request, { requestAsync } from 'request-libcurl';

const opts = {
  method: 'GET', // POST, GET
  url: 'https://example.com', // String
  auth: 'username:password', // String
  form: '{"ops": "value"}', // String, can be JSON or any other type of payload
  headers: { // Object
    Accept: '*/*',
    'User-Agent': 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/73.0.3683.103 Safari/537.36'
  },
  debug: false, // Boolean
  retry: true, // Boolean
  retries: 3, // Number
  timeout: 6144, // Number
  keepAlive: false, // Boolean
  retryDelay: 256, // Number
  followRedirect: true, // Boolean
  maxRedirects: 4, // Number
  rejectUnauthorized: false // Boolean
};

// Async API
try {
  const { statusCode, body, headers } = await requestAsync(opts);
} catch (error) {
  // Houston we got a problem! 😱
  const { errorCode, code, statusCode, message } = error;
}

// Callback API
request(opts, (error, resp) => {
  if (error) {
    // Houston we got a problem! 😱
    const { errorCode, code, statusCode, message } = error;
  } else {
    // We've got successful response! 🥳
    const { statusCode, body, headers } = resp;
  }
});

Request default options

import request from 'request-libcurl';

// Default "defaultOptions" Object:
request.defaultOptions = {
  wait: false,
  proxy: false,
  retry: true,
  debug: false,
  method: 'GET',
  timeout: 6144,
  retries: 3,
  rawBody: false,
  keepAlive: false,
  noStorage: false,
  retryDelay: 256,
  maxRedirects: 4,
  followRedirect: true,
  rejectUnauthorized: false,
  rejectUnauthorizedProxy: false,
  badStatuses: [ 300, 303, 305, 400, 407, 408, 409, 410, 500, 502, 503, 504, 510 ],
  isBadStatus(statusCode, badStatuses = request.defaultOptions.badStatuses) {
    return badStatuses.includes(statusCode) || statusCode >= 500;
  },
  headers: {
    'User-Agent': 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/73.0.3683.103 Safari/537.36',
    Accept: '*/*'
  }
};

// Override default settings:
request.defaultOptions.timeout = 7000;
request.defaultOptions.retries = 12;
request.defaultOptions.retryDelay = 5000;
request.defaultOptions.followRedirect = false;

// Override bad statuses codes (used to trigger retries)
request.defaultOptions.badStatuses = [300, 303, 305, 400, 407, 408, 409, 410];

// Override function used to trigger retries based on status code
request.defaultOptions.isBadStatus = (statusCode, badStatuses = request.defaultOptions.badStatuses) => {
  return badStatuses.includes(statusCode) || statusCode >= 500;
};

Request options

• opts.url or opts.uri {String} - [Required] Fully qualified URI with protocol http/https;
• opts.method {String} - [Optional] HTTP Method name, you can use any valid method name from HTTP specs, tested with GET/POST, default: GET;
• opts.auth {String} - [Optional] value for HTTP Authorization header as plain string in a form of username:password;
• opts.form {String|Object} - [Optional] Custom request body for POST request. If {String} is passed Content-Type will be set to application/x-www-form-urlencoded, by passing plain {Object} Content-Type will be set to application/json. To set custom Content-Type — pass it to opts.headers Object;
• opts.upload {Integer} - [Optional] To upload a file pass an Integer representing the file descriptor. See this example for reference;
• opts.pipeTo {stream.Writable} - [Optional] Pass response data to writableStream, for example download a file to FS via {pipeTo: fs.createWriteStream('/path/to/file.pdf')};
• opts.headers {Object} - [Optional] Custom request headers, default: { Accept: '*/*', 'User-Agent': 'Mozilla/5.0 (Windows NT 10.0; Win64; x64) AppleWebKit/537.36 (KHTML, like Gecko) Chrome/73.0.3683.103 Safari/537.36' }. Note: setting custom request headers will replace default ones;
• opts.debug {Boolean} - [Optional] Enable debug and extra logging, default: false;
• opts.retry {Boolean} - [Optional] Retry request if connection is broken? Default: true;
• opts.retries {Number} - [Optional] How many times retry request if connection is broken, default: 3;
• opts.retryDelay {Number} - [Optional] How long to wait between request retries (ms), default: 256;
• opts.timeout {Number} - [Optional] How long to wait for response (ms), default: 6144;
• opts.followRedirect {Boolean} - [Optional] Shall request follow redirects? Default: true;
• opts.keepAlive {Boolean} - [Optional] Turn on TCP keepalive probes, default: false;
• opts.maxRedirects {Number} - [Optional] How many redirects are supported during single request, default: 4;
• opts.badStatuses {[Number]} - [Optional] Array of "bad" status codes responsible for triggering request retries, default: [300, 303, 305, 400, 407, 408, 409, 410, 500, 502, 503, 504, 510];
• opts.isBadStatus {Function} - [Optional] Function responsible for triggering request retries, default (at the bottom of code-block);
• opts.rawBody {Boolean} - Disable all data processing (body will be passed as Buffer, headers will be empty, use .onHeader() callback to get headers with rawBody option), great option for piping, default: false;
• opts.noStorage {Boolean} - Disable all data processing and data concatenation (headers and body won't be passed to response), great option for piping, default: false;
• opts.wait {Boolean} - Do not send request immediately and wait until .send() method is called, set this option to true to register .onHeader() and .onBody() callbacks, default: false;
• opts.proxy {String} - Fully qualified URL to HTTP proxy, when this feature is enabled connections are going to start with CONNECT request, default: no proxy or system proxy is used;
• opts.rejectUnauthorized {Boolean} - [Optional] Shall request be rejected if SSL/TLS certificate can't be validated? Default: false;
• opts.rejectUnauthorizedProxy {Boolean} - [Optional] Shall request be rejected if SSL/TLS certificate of a proxy host can't be validated? Default: false;
• opts.curlOptions {Object} - [Optional] Explicitly set libcurl options, full list of options available here and here;
• opts.curlFeatures {Object} - [Optional] Explicitly enable or disable libcurl features. To enable a feature pass true as a value, example: {NoDataParsing: true}. To disable pass false as a value, example: {NoDataParsing: false}. Full list of available features is available here.

Notes:

• When using opts.rawBody callback won't return headers, to get headers use onHeader callback;
• When using opts.noStorage callback won't return headers and body, to get headers and body use onData and onHeader callbacks;
• opts.upload and opts.form can not be used together, there won't be exception thrown, if both presented — opts.form will be used instead;
• When using opts.upload or any other request where server returns expect: '100-continue' HTTP header — callback won't return headers, to get headers use onHeader callback;
• This package is build on top of libcurl and node-libcurl it's the way more powerful than just sending requests via http and https protocol. Libcurl can work with IMAP/SMTP protocols getting/sending emails. Libcurl can serve as fully-featured FTP-client. Here's full list of supported protocols: DICT, FILE, FTP, FTPS, Gopher, HTTP, HTTPS, IMAP, IMAPS, LDAP, LDAPS, POP3, POP3S, RTMP, RTSP, SCP, SFTP, SMTP, SMTPS, Telnet and TFTP. To learn more on how to utilize all available power and features see docs of node-libcurl and libcurl itself.

Response

• resp.statusCode {Number} - HTTP response/status code;
• resp.body {String} - Body of HTTP response, not modified or processed, as it is — plain text;
• resp.headers {Object} - HTTP response headers as plain Object, all headers names are lower-cased.

Error

• error.errorCode {Number} - libcurl internal error code;
• error.code {Number} - libcurl internal error code, same as errorCode;
• error.statusCode {Number} - HTTP error code, if any;
• error.message {String} - Human-readable error.

Returns req Object

• request() and requestAsync({ wait: true }) return req instance of {LibCurlRequest}
• requestAsync() (without wait) and req.sendAsync() return {Response} upon resolve

Using async API

import { requestAsync } from 'request-libcurl';

// WITH { wait: true }
const req = await requestAsync({ url: 'https://example.com', wait: true });
try {
  const { statusCode, body, headers } = await req.sendAsync();
} catch (error) {
  const { errorCode, code, statusCode, message } = error;
}

// GET RESPONSE RIGHT AWAY
try {
  const resp = await requestAsync({ url: 'https://example.com' });
  const { statusCode, body, headers } = resp;
} catch (error) {
  const { errorCode, code, statusCode, message } = error;
}

• req {LibCurlRequest} - The LibCurlRequest instance returned only with { wait: true } option, otherwise it returns Response (resp in the docs) right away
• req.abortAsync() {Promise} - Abort current request, request will throw 499: Client Closed Request HTTP error
• req.sendAsync() {Promise} - Send request, use it with { wait: true }. For example with rawBody/noStorage, when you need to delay sending request, for example to set event listeners and/or callbacks
• req.pipe(stream.Writable) {Function} - Pipe response to a WritableStream, for example download a file to FS. Use with {wait: true, retry: false} options, and .sendAsync() method
• req.onData(callback) {Function} - Hook, called right after data is received, called for each data-chunk. Useful with .pipe(), rawBody/noStorage and callbacks/events
• req.onHeader(callback) {Function} - Hook, called right after header is received, called for each header. Useful with .pipe(), rawBody/noStorage and callbacks/events
• resp {Response} - Successful response
  • error {undefined};
  • resp.statusCode {Number} - HTTP status code;
  • resp.body {String} - Body of HTTP response, not modified or processed, as it is — plain text;
  • resp.headers {Object} - Key-value plain Object with pairs of response headers;
• error {ResponseError} - Failed response
  • error.errorCode {Number} - libcurl internal error code;
  • error.code {Number} - libcurl internal error code, same as errorCode;
  • error.statusCode {Number} - HTTP error code, if any;
  • error.message {String} - Human-readable error.

Using callback API

import request from 'request-libcurl';
const req = request({ url: 'https://example.com' }, callback);

• req.abort() - Abort current request, request will return 499: Client Closed Request HTTP error
• req.send() - Send request, use it with { wait: true }. For example with rawBody/noStorage, when you need to delay sending request, for example to set event listeners and/or callbacks
• callback(error, resp) - Callback triggered on successful response
  • error {undefined};
  • resp {Response}
• callback(error) - Callback triggered on failed request
  • error {ResponseError};
• The rest of methods match async API

Examples

Send GET and POST requests, download and upload files — all just in few lines of code.

GET request

By default request-libcurl will take care of chunked responses and encoding:

import { requestAsync } from 'request-libcurl';

// GET request:
const { body } = await requestAsync({ url: 'https://example.com' });

For full control over request/response streams, chunks, and encoding use {rawBody: true, wait: true, retry: false} options with .onData() and .onHeader() callbacks:

let responseBody = Buffer.from('');
let responseHeaders = Buffer.from('');
const headersObj = {};

const req = await requestAsync({
  url: 'https://example.com',
  retry: false, // Do not retry with rawBody/noStorage, as it may mess up with headers and body inside `.onData()` and `.onHeader()` callbacks
  rawBody: true,
  wait: true // Using 'wait' option to set `.onData()` and `.onHeader()` callbacks
});

req.onData((chunkAsBuffer) => {
  // Do something with a body
  // .pipe() for example
  responseBody = Buffer.concat([responseBody, chunkAsBuffer]);
});

req.onHeader((chunkAsBuffer) => {
  responseHeaders = Buffer.concat([responseHeaders, chunkAsBuffer]);

  // Or convert it to headers Object
  // Headers received one-by-one, line-by-line
  const header = chunkAsBuffer.toString('utf8');
  if (header.includes(':')) {
    const splitHeader = header.split(':');
    headersObj[splitHeader[0].toLowerCase().trim()] = splitHeader[1].trim();
  }
});

await req.sendAsync();
// Body as plain-string
const body = responseBody.toString('utf8');
// All headers as plain multi-line string
const headers = responseHeaders.toString('utf8');
// All headers as plain-Object
console.log(headersObj);

POST request

import request, { requestAsync } from 'request-libcurl';
import querystring from 'querystring';

// POST (Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded):
// by passing a String or formatted "Query String" to `form`
const resp = await requestAsync({
  method: 'POST',
  url: 'https://example.com',
  form: querystring.stringify({ myForm: 'data' })
};

// POST with Authorization (Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded):
// by passing a String or formatted "Query String" to `form`
const resp = await requestAsync({
  method: 'POST',
  url: 'https://example.com',
  auth: 'username:passwd',
  form: querystring.stringify({ myForm: 'data' })
});

// POST (Content-Type: application/json):
// by passing plain Object to `form`
// calling via callback API
request({
  method: 'POST',
  url: 'https://example.com',
  form: { myForm: 'data' }
}, (error, resp) => {
  /* ... */
});

POST request with extra options

import { requestAsync } from 'request-libcurl';

// POST with Authorization (Content-Type: application/json):
// by passing plain Object to `form`
const resp = await requestAsync({
  method: 'POST',
  url: 'https://example.com',
  auth: 'username:passwd',
  form: {
    myJSON: 'data'
  }
});

// Custom POST (Content-Type: text/plain):
// by passing custom Headers
const resp = await requestAsync({
  method: 'POST',
  url: 'https://example.com',
  form: 'Plain String or Base64 String or any other String',
  headers: {
    'Content-Type': 'text/plain'
  }
});

File download

Download a file to the FileSystem by passing {stream.Writable}

File download using pipeTo option

Download a file to the FileSystem by passing {stream.Writable} to pipeTo option:

import fs from 'fs';
import request from 'request-libcurl';

const req = request({
  url: 'https://example.com/file.pdf',
  pipeTo: fs.createWriteStream('/path/to/file.pdf', {flags: 'w'}),
  retry: false // Do not retry when download!
}, (error, resp) => {
  if (error) {
    throw error;
  } else {
    // File successfully downloaded
    fs.stat('/path/to/file.pdf', (error, stats) => {
      // do something with downloaded file
    });
  }
});

File download via .pipe() method

Download a file to the FileSystem using .pipe() method:

import fs from 'node:fs/promises';
import { requestAsync } from 'request-libcurl';

const req = await requestAsync({
  url: 'https://example.com/file.pdf',
  wait: true,
  retry: false // Do not retry when download!
});

req.pipe(fs.createWriteStream('/path/to/file.pdf', { flags: 'w' }));
// .pipe() method can be used to pass download to a multiple WritableStream(s):
// req.pipe(fs.createWriteStream('/backup/downloads/file.pdf', {flags: 'w'}));

await req.sendAsync();
// File successfully downloaded

const stats = await fs.stat('/path/to/file.pdf');
// do something with downloaded file

File upload

import fs from 'node:fs/promises';
import { requestAsync } from 'request-libcurl';

await requestAsync({
  method: 'POST',
  url: 'https://example.com/upload',
  upload: await fs.open('/path/to/a/file', 'r'),
  retry: false,
});
// File successfully uploaded

File upload (multipart/form-data)

In this example we are going to use HTTPPOST libcurl option passing Object[] (array of Objects representing files, note: multiple files can be passed in a single request) via curlOptions

import { requestAsync } from 'request-libcurl';
const fileLocation = '/full/absolute/path/to/a/file.ext';

await requestAsync({
  method: 'POST', // Can be used with PUT
  url: 'https://example.com/upload.php',
  retry: false,
  curlOptions: {
    HTTPPOST: [{
      name: 'file.ext', // File's name
      file: fileLocation, // Full absolute path to a file on FS
      type: 'application/ext' // File's mime-type
    } /*, {...multiple files here...} */]
  }
});
// File(s) successfully uploaded

Known Issues

Got an issue? Start with checking "Known Issues" section below.

1. SSL connect error code: 35

To address most common issue with SSL certificates and speed up response time — SSL/TLS certificates validation is disabled in this package by default. But on edge cases this may return error-code 35 on SNI-enabled hosts. To solve this issue add { rejectUnauthorized: true } to request object.

To change rejectUnauthorized option globally use:

request.defaultOptions.rejectUnauthorized = true;

2. Compiled against Different Node.js version

Due to single dependency on node-libcurl which shipped with statically built binaries, you may encounter This module was compiled against a different Node.js version using NODE_MODULE_VERSION error. This may happen on edge cases, like running the very latest release of node.js (while bundled builds aren't shipped yet), then you may want to build this package locally, use one of next commands:

# First: ensure node.js version is matching supported request-libcurl version
# See "Install" section at the top of this document to check supported versions
# package might require downgrade installing explicit version

# Please see options below, in dependence from version of NPM and Node.js
# one of this options should solve this issue

# Option 1: Update and rebuild locally installed binaries
npm rebuild --update-binary --build-from-source

# Option 2: Build library
npm install --save request-libcurl --build-from-source

# Option 3: Build library and curl executables:
npm install --save request-libcurl --build-from-source --curl_static_build=true

# In case if you encounter errors during building package locally:
# 1. Execute same command as "sudo" (e.g. administrator), and try again
# 2. Install globally node-gyp and node-pre-gyp NPM packages, and try again

3. Missing libraries

Some of indirect dependencies of libcurl might be missing. Errors related to missing dependencies include Library not loaded, and image not found in error's description/output.

zstd

One of curl dependency libraries is zstd. See installation instruction below or build from source

# Error: Library not loaded: /usr/local/opt/zstd/lib/libzstd.1.dylib
# Reason: image not found

# Solution 1: macOS Install via brew
brew install zstd

# Solution 2: Linux/Debian/Ubuntu Install via apt-get
apt-get update
apt-get install zstd

# Solution 3: Linux/CentOS/RHEL Install via yum
yum install zstd

# Solution 4: Unix build from source
# Up to date docs — https://github.com/facebook/zstd#build-instructions
# Download latest release from here — https://github.com/facebook/zstd/releases
# For example as of 2020-06-02 — zstd-1.4.8.tar.gz
curl https://github.com/facebook/zstd/releases/download/v1.4.8/zstd-1.4.8.tar.gz -O
make
make install # might require sudo/root permissions
# Optionally test compiled binary with:
make check

For more details and instructions for different platforms read node-libcurl official docs. Note: It's highly recommended to run tests after building package locally.

Running Tests

1. Clone this package
2. In Terminal (Console) go to directory where package is cloned
3. Then run:

# Install development NPM dependencies:
npm install --save-dev
# Install NPM dependencies:
npm install --save
# Run tests:
PORT=3003 npm test
# Run tests and output debugging details:
DEBUG=true PORT=3003 npm test
# PORT env.var is required! And can be changed to any open port!
# Note: The Internet connection is required to perform tests
# Note: Test-suite includes "no response" and "timing out responses"
# if a test looks stuck — give it another minute before interrupting it

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