How is an HTTP POST request made in node.js?

Question

How can I make an outbound HTTP POST request, with data, in node.js?

Answer 1

Update 2020:

I've been really enjoying phin - The ultra-lightweight Node.js HTTP client

It can be used in two different ways. One with Promises (Async/Await) and the other with traditional callback styles.

Install via: npm i phin

Straight from it's README with await:

const p = require('phin')

await p({
    url: 'https://ethanent.me',
    method: 'POST',
    data: {
        hey: 'hi'
    }
})

Unpromisifed (callback) style:

const p = require('phin').unpromisified

p('https://ethanent.me', (err, res) => {
    if (!err) console.log(res.body)
})

---

As of 2015 there are now a wide variety of different libraries that can accomplish this with minimal coding. I much prefer elegant light weight libraries for HTTP requests unless you absolutely need control of the low level HTTP stuff.

One such library is Unirest

To install it, use npm.
$ npm install unirest

And onto the Hello, World! example that everyone is accustomed to.

var unirest = require('unirest');

unirest.post('http://example.com/helloworld')
.header('Accept', 'application/json')
.send({ "Hello": "World!" })
.end(function (response) {
  console.log(response.body);
});

Extra:
A lot of people are also suggesting the use of request [ 2 ]

It should be worth noting that behind the scenes Unirest uses the request library.

Unirest provides methods for accessing the request object directly.

Example:

var Request = unirest.get('http://mockbin.com/request');