http.get

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http.get(url, options?, callback?): http.ClientRequest

Attributes

url:string | URL

options:Object

Accepts the same options as http.request(), with the method set to GET by default.

callback:Function

Returns:http.ClientRequest

Since most requests are GET requests without bodies, Node.js provides this convenience method. The only difference between this method and http.request() is that it sets the method to GET by default and calls req.end() automatically. The callback must take care to consume the response data for reasons stated in http.ClientRequest section.

The callback is invoked with a single argument that is an instance of http.IncomingMessage.

JSON fetching example:

http.get('http://localhost:8000/', (res) => {
  const { statusCode } = res;
  const contentType = res.headers['content-type'];

  let error;
  // Any 2xx status code signals a successful response but
  // here we're only checking for 200.
  if (statusCode !== 200) {
    error = new Error('Request Failed.\n' +
                      `Status Code: ${statusCode}`);
  } else if (!/^application\/json/.test(contentType)) {
    error = new Error('Invalid content-type.\n' +
                      `Expected application/json but received ${contentType}`);
  }
  if (error) {
    console.error(error.message);
    // Consume response data to free up memory
    res.resume();
    return;
  }

  res.setEncoding('utf8');
  let rawData = '';
  res.on('data', (chunk) => { rawData += chunk; });
  res.on('end', () => {
    try {
      const parsedData = JSON.parse(rawData);
      console.log(parsedData);
    } catch (e) {
      console.error(e.message);
    }
  });
}).on('error', (e) => {
  console.error(`Got error: ${e.message}`);
});

// Create a local server to receive data from
const server = http.createServer((req, res) => {
  res.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' });
  res.end(JSON.stringify({
    data: 'Hello World!',
  }));
});

server.listen(8000);

JavaScript