urllib

Request HTTP URLs in a complex world — basic and digest authentication, redirections, timeout and more.

Install

npm install urllib

Usage

TypeScript and ESM

import { request } from 'urllib';

const { data, res } = await request('http://cnodejs.org/');
// result: { data: Buffer, res: Response }
console.log('status: %s, body size: %d, headers: %j', res.status, data.length, res.headers);

CommonJS

const { request } = require('urllib');

const { data, res } = await request('http://cnodejs.org/');
// result: { data: Buffer, res: Response }
console.log('status: %s, body size: %d, headers: %j', res.status, data.length, res.headers);

API Doc

Method: `async request(url[, options])`

Arguments

url String | Object - The URL to request, either a String or a Object that return by url.parse.
options Object - Optional
- method String - Request method, defaults to GET. Could be GET, POST, DELETE or PUT. Alias 'type'.
- data Object - Data to be sent. Will be stringify automatically.
- content String | Buffer - Manually set the content of payload. If set, data will be ignored.
- stream stream.Readable - Stream to be pipe to the remote. If set, data and content will be ignored.
- writeStream stream.Writable - A writable stream to be piped by the response stream. Responding data will be write to this stream and callback will be called with data set null after finished writing.
- files {Array<ReadStream|Buffer|String> | Object | ReadStream | Buffer | String - The files will send with multipart/form-data format, base on formstream. If method not set, will use POST method by default.
- contentType String - Type of request data. Could be json (Notes: not use application/json here). If it's json, will auto set Content-Type: application/json header.
- dataType String - Type of response data. Could be text or json. If it's text, the callbacked data would be a String. If it's json, the data of callback would be a parsed JSON Object and will auto set Accept: application/json header. Default callbacked data would be a Buffer.
- fixJSONCtlChars Boolean - Fix the control characters (U+0000 through U+001F) before JSON parse response. Default is false.
- headers Object - Request headers.
- timeout Number | Array - Request timeout in milliseconds for connecting phase and response receiving phase. Default is 5000. You can use timeout: 5000 to tell urllib use same timeout on two phase or set them separately such as timeout: [3000, 5000], which will set connecting timeout to 3s and response 5s.
- keepAliveTimeout number | null - Default is 4000, 4 seconds - The timeout after which a socket without active requests will time out. Monitors time between activity on a connected socket. This value may be overridden by keep-alive hints from the server. See MDN: HTTP - Headers - Keep-Alive directives for more details.
- auth String - username:password used in HTTP Basic Authorization.
- digestAuth String - username:password used in HTTP Digest Authorization.
- followRedirect Boolean - follow HTTP 3xx responses as redirects. defaults to true.
- maxRedirects Number - The maximum number of redirects to follow, defaults to 10.
- formatRedirectUrl Function - Format the redirect url by yourself. Default is url.resolve(from, to).
- beforeRequest Function - Before request hook, you can change every thing here.
- streaming Boolean - lets you get the res object when request connected, default false. alias customResponse
- compressed Boolean - Accept gzip, br response content and auto decode it, default is false.
- timing Boolean - Enable timing or not, default is true.
- socketPath String | null - request a unix socket service, default is null.
- highWaterMark Number - default is 67108864, 64 KiB.

Options: `options.data`

When making a request:

await request('https://example.com', {
  method: 'GET',
  data: {
    'a': 'hello',
    'b': 'world',
  },
});

For GET request, data will be stringify to query string, e.g. http://example.com/?a=hello&b=world.

For others like POST, PATCH or PUT request, in defaults, the data will be stringify into application/x-www-form-urlencoded format if content-type header is not set.

If content-type is application/json, the data will be JSON.stringify to JSON data format.

Options: `options.content`

options.content is useful when you wish to construct the request body by yourself, for example making a content-type: application/json request.

Notes that if you want to send a JSON body, you should stringify it yourself:

await request('https://example.com', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {
    'Content-Type': 'application/json',
  },
  content: JSON.stringify({
    a: 'hello',
    b: 'world',
  }),
});

It would make a HTTP request like:

POST / HTTP/1.1
host: example.com
content-type: application/json

{
  "a": "hello",
  "b": "world"
}

This example can use options.data with application/json content type:

await request('https://example.com', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {
    'content-type': 'application/json'
  },
  data: {
    a: 'hello',
    b: 'world',
  }
});

Options: `options.files`

Upload a file with a hello field.

await request('https://example.com/upload', {
  method: 'POST',
  files: __filename,
  data: {
    hello: 'hello urllib',
  },
});

Upload multi files with a hello field.

await request('https://example.com/upload', {
  method: 'POST',
  files: [
    __filename,
    fs.createReadStream(__filename),
    Buffer.from('mock file content'),
  ],
  data: {
    hello: 'hello urllib with multi files',
  },
});

Custom file field name with uploadfile.

await request('https://example.com/upload', {
  method: 'POST',
  files: {
    uploadfile: __filename,
  },
});

Response Object

Response is normal object, it contains:

status or statusCode: response status code.
- -1 meaning some network error like ENOTFOUND
- -2 meaning ConnectionTimeoutError
headers: response http headers, default is {}
size: response size
aborted: response was aborted or not
rt: total request and response time in ms.
timing: timing object if timing enable.
socket: socket info

Run test with debug log

NODE_DEBUG=urllib:* npm test

Request with HTTP2

Create a HttpClient with options.allowH2 = true

import { HttpClient } from 'urllib';

const httpClient = new HttpClient({
  allowH2: true,
});

const response = await httpClient.request('https://node.js.org');
console.log(response.status);
console.log(response.headers);

Mocking Request

export from undici

import { strict as assert } from 'assert';
import { MockAgent, setGlobalDispatcher, request } from 'urllib';

const mockAgent = new MockAgent();
setGlobalDispatcher(mockAgent);

const mockPool = mockAgent.get('http://localhost:7001');

mockPool.intercept({
  path: '/foo',
  method: 'POST',
}).reply(400, {
  message: 'mock 400 bad request',
});

const response = await request('http://localhost:7001/foo', {
  method: 'POST',
  dataType: 'json',
});
assert.equal(response.status, 400);
assert.deepEqual(response.data, { message: 'mock 400 bad request' });

Request through a http proxy

export from undici

import { ProxyAgent, request } from 'urllib';

const proxyAgent = new ProxyAgent('http://my.proxy.com:8080');
const response = await request('https://www.npmjs.com/package/urllib', {
  dispatcher: proxyAgent,
});
console.log(response.status, response.headers);

Benchmarks

Fork undici benchmarks script

undici@6.19.2

Node.js v18.20.3

┌─────────┬───────────────────────┬─────────┬────────────────────┬─────────────┬─────────────────────────┐
│ (index) │         Tests         │ Samples │       Result       │  Tolerance  │ Difference with slowest │
├─────────┼───────────────────────┼─────────┼────────────────────┼─────────────┼─────────────────────────┤
│    0    │  'urllib2 - request'  │   10    │  '321.53 req/sec'  │ '± 0.38 %'  │           '-'           │
│    1    │ 'http - no keepalive' │   10    │  '607.77 req/sec'  │ '± 0.80 %'  │       '+ 89.02 %'       │
│    2    │         'got'         │   101   │ '7929.51 req/sec'  │ '± 4.46 %'  │      '+ 2366.15 %'      │
│    3    │     'node-fetch'      │   40    │ '8651.95 req/sec'  │ '± 2.99 %'  │      '+ 2590.84 %'      │
│    4    │       'request'       │   101   │ '8864.09 req/sec'  │ '± 7.81 %'  │      '+ 2656.82 %'      │
│    5    │   'undici - fetch'    │   101   │ '9607.01 req/sec'  │ '± 4.23 %'  │      '+ 2887.87 %'      │
│    6    │        'axios'        │   55    │ '10378.80 req/sec' │ '± 2.94 %'  │      '+ 3127.91 %'      │
│    7    │     'superagent'      │   75    │ '11286.74 req/sec' │ '± 2.90 %'  │      '+ 3410.29 %'      │
│    8    │  'http - keepalive'   │   60    │ '11288.96 req/sec' │ '± 2.95 %'  │      '+ 3410.98 %'      │
│    9    │  'urllib4 - request'  │   101   │ '11352.65 req/sec' │ '± 10.20 %' │      '+ 3430.79 %'      │
│   10    │  'urllib3 - request'  │   40    │ '13831.19 req/sec' │ '± 2.89 %'  │      '+ 4201.64 %'      │
│   11    │  'undici - pipeline'  │   60    │ '14562.44 req/sec' │ '± 2.91 %'  │      '+ 4429.06 %'      │
│   12    │  'undici - request'   │   70    │ '19630.64 req/sec' │ '± 2.87 %'  │      '+ 6005.32 %'      │
│   13    │   'undici - stream'   │   55    │ '20843.50 req/sec' │ '± 2.90 %'  │      '+ 6382.54 %'      │
│   14    │  'undici - dispatch'  │   55    │ '21233.10 req/sec' │ '± 2.82 %'  │      '+ 6503.70 %'      │
└─────────┴───────────────────────┴─────────┴────────────────────┴─────────────┴─────────────────────────┘

Node.js v20.15.0

┌─────────┬───────────────────────┬─────────┬────────────────────┬────────────┬─────────────────────────┐
│ (index) │ Tests                 │ Samples │ Result             │ Tolerance  │ Difference with slowest │
├─────────┼───────────────────────┼─────────┼────────────────────┼────────────┼─────────────────────────┤
│ 0       │ 'urllib2 - request'   │ 10      │ '332.91 req/sec'   │ '± 1.13 %' │ '-'                     │
│ 1       │ 'http - no keepalive' │ 10      │ '615.50 req/sec'   │ '± 2.25 %' │ '+ 84.88 %'             │
│ 2       │ 'got'                 │ 55      │ '7658.39 req/sec'  │ '± 2.98 %' │ '+ 2200.42 %'           │
│ 3       │ 'node-fetch'          │ 30      │ '7832.96 req/sec'  │ '± 2.96 %' │ '+ 2252.86 %'           │
│ 4       │ 'axios'               │ 40      │ '8607.27 req/sec'  │ '± 2.79 %' │ '+ 2485.44 %'           │
│ 5       │ 'request'             │ 35      │ '8703.49 req/sec'  │ '± 2.84 %' │ '+ 2514.35 %'           │
│ 6       │ 'undici - fetch'      │ 65      │ '9971.24 req/sec'  │ '± 2.96 %' │ '+ 2895.15 %'           │
│ 7       │ 'superagent'          │ 30      │ '11006.46 req/sec' │ '± 2.90 %' │ '+ 3206.11 %'           │
│ 8       │ 'http - keepalive'    │ 55      │ '11610.14 req/sec' │ '± 2.87 %' │ '+ 3387.44 %'           │
│ 9       │ 'urllib3 - request'   │ 25      │ '13873.38 req/sec' │ '± 2.96 %' │ '+ 4067.27 %'           │
│ 10      │ 'urllib4 - request'   │ 25      │ '14291.36 req/sec' │ '± 2.92 %' │ '+ 4192.82 %'           │
│ 11      │ 'undici - pipeline'   │ 45      │ '14617.69 req/sec' │ '± 2.84 %' │ '+ 4290.85 %'           │
│ 12      │ 'undici - dispatch'   │ 101     │ '18716.29 req/sec' │ '± 3.97 %' │ '+ 5521.98 %'           │
│ 13      │ 'undici - request'    │ 101     │ '19165.16 req/sec' │ '± 3.25 %' │ '+ 5656.81 %'           │
│ 14      │ 'undici - stream'     │ 30      │ '21816.28 req/sec' │ '± 2.99 %' │ '+ 6453.15 %'           │
└─────────┴───────────────────────┴─────────┴────────────────────┴────────────┴─────────────────────────┘

Node.js v22.3.0

┌─────────┬───────────────────────┬─────────┬────────────────────┬────────────┬─────────────────────────┐
│ (index) │ Tests                 │ Samples │ Result             │ Tolerance  │ Difference with slowest │
├─────────┼───────────────────────┼─────────┼────────────────────┼────────────┼─────────────────────────┤
│ 0       │ 'urllib2 - request'   │ 15      │ '297.46 req/sec'   │ '± 2.65 %' │ '-'                     │
│ 1       │ 'http - no keepalive' │ 10      │ '598.25 req/sec'   │ '± 1.94 %' │ '+ 101.12 %'            │
│ 2       │ 'axios'               │ 30      │ '8487.94 req/sec'  │ '± 2.91 %' │ '+ 2753.52 %'           │
│ 3       │ 'got'                 │ 50      │ '10054.46 req/sec' │ '± 2.89 %' │ '+ 3280.16 %'           │
│ 4       │ 'request'             │ 45      │ '10306.02 req/sec' │ '± 2.87 %' │ '+ 3364.73 %'           │
│ 5       │ 'node-fetch'          │ 55      │ '11160.02 req/sec' │ '± 2.87 %' │ '+ 3651.83 %'           │
│ 6       │ 'superagent'          │ 80      │ '11302.28 req/sec' │ '± 2.85 %' │ '+ 3699.66 %'           │
│ 7       │ 'undici - fetch'      │ 60      │ '11357.87 req/sec' │ '± 2.89 %' │ '+ 3718.35 %'           │
│ 8       │ 'http - keepalive'    │ 60      │ '13782.10 req/sec' │ '± 2.97 %' │ '+ 4533.34 %'           │
│ 9       │ 'urllib4 - request'   │ 70      │ '15965.62 req/sec' │ '± 2.88 %' │ '+ 5267.40 %'           │
│ 10      │ 'urllib3 - request'   │ 55      │ '16010.37 req/sec' │ '± 2.90 %' │ '+ 5282.45 %'           │
│ 11      │ 'undici - pipeline'   │ 35      │ '17969.37 req/sec' │ '± 2.95 %' │ '+ 5941.03 %'           │
│ 12      │ 'undici - dispatch'   │ 101     │ '18765.50 req/sec' │ '± 3.01 %' │ '+ 6208.68 %'           │
│ 13      │ 'undici - request'    │ 85      │ '20091.12 req/sec' │ '± 2.95 %' │ '+ 6654.33 %'           │
│ 14      │ 'undici - stream'     │ 45      │ '21599.12 req/sec' │ '± 2.81 %' │ '+ 7161.30 %'           │
└─────────┴───────────────────────┴─────────┴────────────────────┴────────────┴─────────────────────────┘

License

MIT

Contributors

Made with contributors-img.

Name		Name	Last commit message	Last commit date
Latest commit History 710 Commits
.github/workflows		.github/workflows
.vscode		.vscode
examples		examples
scripts		scripts
src		src
test		test
.gitignore		.gitignore
.oxlintrc.json		.oxlintrc.json
CHANGELOG.md		CHANGELOG.md
LICENSE		LICENSE
README.md		README.md
package.json		package.json
renovate.json		renovate.json
tsconfig.json		tsconfig.json
vite.config.ts		vite.config.ts

Provide feedback

Saved searches

Use saved searches to filter your results more quickly

Uh oh!

Repository files navigation

urllib

Install

Usage

TypeScript and ESM

CommonJS

API Doc

Method: `async request(url[, options])`

Arguments

Options: `options.data`

Options: `options.content`

Options: `options.files`

Response Object

Run test with debug log

Request with HTTP2

Mocking Request

Request through a http proxy

Benchmarks

License

Contributors

About

Uh oh!

Releases 71

Uh oh!

Contributors 54

Languages

License

node-modules/urllib

Folders and files

Latest commit

History

Repository files navigation

urllib

Install

Usage

TypeScript and ESM

CommonJS

API Doc

Method: async request(url[, options])

Arguments

Options: options.data

Options: options.content

Options: options.files

Response Object

Run test with debug log

Request with HTTP2

Mocking Request

Request through a http proxy

Benchmarks

License

Contributors

About

Topics

Resources

License

Uh oh!

Stars

Watchers

Forks

Releases 71

Uh oh!

Contributors 54

Languages

Method: `async request(url[, options])`

Options: `options.data`

Options: `options.content`

Options: `options.files`