Using node.js HTTP remote client request doesn't return any body

Question

I\'m using node.js to download a webpage. However, it\'s not receiving any chunks of data:

    console.log(\'preparing request to \' + url)
    u = require(\'url         


        

Answer 1

This is an example which always worked for me:

var sys = require('sys'),
    http = require('http');

var connection = http.createClient(8080, 'localhost'),
    request = connection.request('/');

connection.addListener('error', function(connectionException){
    sys.log(connectionException);
});

request.addListener('response', function(response){
    var data = '';

    response.addListener('data', function(chunk){ 
        data += chunk; 
    });
    response.addListener('end', function(){
        // Do something with data.
    });
});

request.end();

Answer 2

You need to call end() on the request to signal that you are ready to send it. Also you should add a user-agent header to your request. Many web servers look for it.

console.log('preparing request to ' + url)
u = require('url').parse(url)
var remote_client = http.createClient(80, u['host']);
var request = remote_client.request("GET", u['pathname'], {"host": u['host'],
                                                           "user-agent": "node.js"});
console.log("request made")

request.addListener('response', function (response) {
    response.setEncoding('binary') 
    var body = '';

    response.addListener('data', function (chunk) {
        body += chunk;
        console.log('chunk received')
    });
});

request.end();