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.

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Answer 1

Currently request module is being deprecated as @schlicki pointed out. One of the alternatives in the link he posted is got:

const got = require('got');

(async () => {
    try {
        const response = await got('https://www.nodesource.com/');
        console.log(response.body);
        //=> ' ...'
    } catch (error) {
        console.log(error.response.body);
        //=> 'Internal server error ...'
    }
})();

But with this method, you will get the whole HTML page in the reponse.body. In addition got may have many more functionalities you may not need. That's I wanted to add another alternative I found to the list. As I was using the portscanner library, I could use it for the same aim without downloading the content of the website. You may need to use the 443 port as well if the website works with https

var portscanner = require('portscanner')

// Checks the status of a single port
portscanner.checkPortStatus(80, 'www.google.es', function(error, status) {
    // Status is 'open' if currently in use or 'closed' if available
    console.log(status)
})

Anyway, the most close approach is url-exist module as @Richie Bendall explains in his post. I just wanted to add some other alternative