node.js check if a remote URL exists

Question

How do I check to see if a URL exists without pulling it down? I use the following code, but it downloads the whole file. I just need to check that it exists.

ap         


        

Answer 1

my awaitable async ES6 solution, doing a HEAD request:

// options for the http request
let options = {
    host: 'google.de',
    //port: 80,  optional
    //path: '/'  optional
}

const http = require('http');

// creating a promise (all promises a can be awaited)
let isOk = await new Promise(resolve => {
    // trigger the request ('HEAD' or 'GET' - you should check if you get the expected result for a HEAD request first (curl))
    // then trigger the callback
    http.request({method:'HEAD', host:options.host, port:options.port, path: options.path}, result =>
        resolve(result.statusCode >= 200 && result.statusCode < 400)
    ).on('error', resolve).end();
});

// check if the result was NOT ok
if (!isOk) 
    console.error('could not get: ' + options.host);
else
    console.info('url exists: ' + options.host);