node.js distinguishing errors when making http request

Question

My node.js application is using http.request to the REST API http://army.gov/launch-nukes and I need to distinguish between three possible cases:

Answer 1

Here is an example:

var http = require('http');

var options = {
  hostname: 'localhost',
  port: 7777,
  path: '/',
  method: 'GET'
};

var req = http.request(options, function (res) {
  // check the returned response code
  if (('' + res.statusCode).match(/^2\d\d$/)) {
    // Request handled, happy
  } else if (('' + res.statusCode).match(/^5\d\d$/))
    // Server error, I have no idea what happend in the backend
    // but server at least returned correctly (in a HTTP protocol
    // sense) formatted response
  }
});

req.on('error', function (e) {
  // General error, i.e.
  //  - ECONNRESET - server closed the socket unexpectedly
  //  - ECONNREFUSED - server did not listen
  //  - HPE_INVALID_VERSION
  //  - HPE_INVALID_STATUS
  //  - ... (other HPE_* codes) - server returned garbage
  console.log(e);
});

req.on('timeout', function () {
  // Timeout happend. Server received request, but not handled it
  // (i.e. doesn't send any response or it took to long).
  // You don't know what happend.
  // It will emit 'error' message as well (with ECONNRESET code).

  console.log('timeout');
  req.abort();
});

req.setTimeout(5000);
req.end();

I recommend you play with it using netcat, ie.:

$ nc -l 7777
// Just listens and does not send any response (i.e. timeout)

$ echo -e "HTTP/1.1 200 OK\n\n" | nc -l 7777
// HTTP 200 OK

$ echo -e "HTTP/1.1 500 Internal\n\n" | nc -l 7777
// HTTP 500

(and so on...)