restify-clients


Getting Started

Install the module with: npm install restify-clients

Usage

$3

There are three separate clients:

* JsonClient: sends and expects application/json
* StringClient: sends url-encoded request and expects text/plain
* HttpClient: thin wrapper over node's http/https libraries

The idea being that if you want to support "typical" control-plane
REST APIs, you probably want the JsonClient, or if you're using some
other serialization (like XML) you'd write your own client that
extends the StringClient. If you need streaming support, you'll need
to do some work on top of the HttpClient, as StringClient and
friends buffer requests/responses.

All clients support retry with exponential backoff for getting a TCP
connection; they do not perform retries on 5xx error codes like
previous versions of the restify client. You can set retry to false to
disable this logic altogether. Also, all clients support a connectTimeout
field, which is use on each retry. The default is not to set a
connectTimeout, so you end up with the node.js socket defaults.

Here's an example of hitting the
Joyent CloudAPI:

``javascript
var clients = require('restify-clients');

// Creates a JSON client
var client = clients.createJsonClient({
url: 'https://us-east-1.api.joyent.com'
});


client.basicAuth('$login', '$password');
client.get('/my/machines', function(err, req, res, obj) {
assert.ifError(err);

console.log(JSON.stringify(obj, null, 2));
});
`

As a short-hand, a client can be initialized with a string-URL rather than
an options object:

`javascript
var clients = require('restify-clients');

var client = clients.createJsonClient('https://us-east-1.api.joyent.com');
`

Note that all further documentation refers to the "short-hand" form of
methods like get/put/del which take a string path. You can also
pass in an object to any of those methods with extra params (notably
headers):

`javascript
var options = {
path: '/foo/bar',
headers: {
'x-foo': 'bar'
},
retry: {
'retries': 0
},
agent: false
};

client.get(options, function(err, req, res) { .. });
`

If you need to interpose additional headers in the request before it is sent on
to the server, you can provide a synchronous callback function as the
signRequest option when creating a client. This is particularly useful with
node-http-signature, which
needs to attach a cryptographic signature of selected outgoing headers. If
provided, this callback will be invoked with a single parameter: the outgoing
http.ClientRequest object.

$3

The JSON Client is the highest-level client bundled with restify; it
exports a set of methods that map directly to HTTP verbs. All
callbacks look like function(err, req, res, [obj]), where obj is
optional, depending on if content was returned. HTTP status codes are
not interpreted, so if the server returned 4xx or something with a
JSON payload, obj will be the JSON payload. err however will be
set if the server returned a status code >= 400 (it will be one of the
restify HTTP errors). If obj looks like a RestError:

{
"code": "FooError",
"message": "some foo happened"
}

then err gets "upconverted" into a RestError for you. Otherwise
it will be an HttpError.

#### createJsonClient(options)

`javascript
var client = restify.createJsonClient({
url: 'https://api.us-east-1.joyent.com',
version: '*'
});
`

$3

|Name | Type | Description |
| :--- | :----: | :---- |
|accept|String|Accept header to send|
|appendPath|Boolean|Append paths provided at verb time to existing client path|
|audit|Boolean|Enable Audit logging|
|auditor|Function|Function for Audit logging|
|connectTimeout|Number|Amount of time to wait for a socket|
|contentMd5|Object|How response content-md5 headers are handled. See the contentMd5 option to StringClient|
|contentType|String|Content-Type header to send|
|requestTimeout|Number|Amount of time to wait for the request to finish|
|dtrace|Object|node-dtrace-provider handle|
|gzip|Object|Will compress data when sent using content-encoding: gzip|
|headers|Object|HTTP headers to set in all requests|
|log|Object|bunyan instance|
|query|Object|querystring object to be serialized via querystring module|
|retry|Object|options to provide to node-retry;"false" disables retry; defaults to 4 retries|
|safeStringify|Boolean|Safely serialize JSON objects, i.e. circular dependencies|
|signRequest|Function|synchronous callback for interposing headers before request is sent|
|url|String|Fully-qualified URL to connect to|
|userAgent|String|user-agent string to use; restify inserts one, but you can override it|
|version|String|semver string to set the accept-version|
|followRedirects|Boolean|Follow redirects from server|
|maxRedirects|Number|Maximum number of redirects to follow|
|proxy|String|An HTTP proxy URL string (or parsed URL object) to use for requests. If not specified, then the https_proxy or http_proxy environment variables are used. Pass proxy: false to explicitly disable using a proxy (i.e. to ensure a proxy URL is not picked up from environment variables). See the Proxy section below.|
|noProxy|String|A comma-separated list of hosts for which to not use a proxy. If not specified, then then NO_PROXY environment variable is used. One can pass noProxy: '' to explicitly set this empty and ensure a possible environment variable is not used. See the Proxy section below.|


#### get(path, callback)

Performs an HTTP get; if no payload was returned, obj defaults to
{} for you (so you don't get a bunch of null pointer errors).

`javascript
client.get('/foo/bar', function(err, req, res, obj) {
assert.ifError(err);
console.log('%j', obj);
});
`

#### head(path, callback)

Just like get, but without obj:

`javascript
client.head('/foo/bar', function(err, req, res) {
assert.ifError(err);
console.log('%d -> %j', res.statusCode, res.headers);
});
`

#### post(path, object, callback)

Takes a complete object to serialize and send to the server.

`javascript
client.post('/foo', { hello: 'world' }, function(err, req, res, obj) {
assert.ifError(err);
console.log('%d -> %j', res.statusCode, res.headers);
console.log('%j', obj);
});
`

#### put(path, object, callback)

Just like post:

`javascript
client.put('/foo', { hello: 'world' }, function(err, req, res, obj) {
assert.ifError(err);
console.log('%d -> %j', res.statusCode, res.headers);
console.log('%j', obj);
});
`

#### del(path, callback)

del doesn't take content, since you know, it should't:

`javascript
client.del('/foo/bar', function(err, req, res) {
assert.ifError(err);
console.log('%d -> %j', res.statusCode, res.headers);
});
`

$3

StringClient is what JsonClient is built on, and provides a base
for you to write other buffering/parsing clients (like say an XML
client). If you need to talk to some "raw" HTTP server, then
StringClient is what you want, as it by default will provide you
with content uploads in application/x-www-form-url-encoded and
downloads as text/plain. To extend a StringClient, take a look at
the source for JsonClient. Effectively, you extend it, and set the
appropriate options in the constructor and implement a write (for
put/post) and parse method (for all HTTP bodies), and that's it.

#### contentMd5

The contentMd5 option to StringClient specifies how content-md5 response
headers are handled:

`javascript
var contentMd5 = {
ignore: false,
encodings: undefined
};
`

By default if a server responds with a content-md5 header, StringClient will
automatically verify the response body md5 hash, and return a BadDigest error
when it does not match. You can disable this behaviour by setting the
contentMd5.ignore option to true when creating the StringClient instance. You
can also set the contentMd5.encodings property to be an array of encoding
names that StringClient will use to verify the md5. The default encoding is
"utf8" for node 6 and above, and "binary" (a latin1 encoding) for node 4 and
older (as node changed the default crypto hash encoding between versions 4 and
6). To support content-md5 hashes generated by both node 4 and 6 servers, you
can specify contentMd5.encodings = ["utf8", "binary"] when creating the
StringClient instance.

#### createStringClient(options)

`javascript
var client = restify.createStringClient({
url: 'https://example.com'
});
`

#### get(path, callback)

Performs an HTTP get; if no payload was returned, data defaults to
'' for you (so you don't get a bunch of null pointer errors).

`javascript
client.get('/foo/bar', function(err, req, res, data) {
assert.ifError(err);
console.log('%s', data);
});
`

#### head(path, callback)

Just like get, but without data:

`javascript
client.head('/foo/bar', function(err, req, res) {
assert.ifError(err);
console.log('%d -> %j', res.statusCode, res.headers);
});
`

#### post(path, object, callback)

Takes a complete object to serialize and send to the server.

`javascript
client.post('/foo', { hello: 'world' }, function(err, req, res, data) {
assert.ifError(err);
console.log('%d -> %j', res.statusCode, res.headers);
console.log('%s', data);
});
`

#### put(path, object, callback)

Just like post:

`javascript
client.put('/foo', { hello: 'world' }, function(err, req, res, data) {
assert.ifError(err);
console.log('%d -> %j', res.statusCode, res.headers);
console.log('%s', data);
});
`

#### del(path, callback)

del doesn't take content, since you know, it should't:

`javascript
client.del('/foo/bar', function(err, req, res) {
assert.ifError(err);
console.log('%d -> %j', res.statusCode, res.headers);
});
`

$3

HttpClient is the lowest-level client shipped in restify, and is
basically just some sugar over the top of node's http/https modules
(with HTTP methods like the other clients). It is useful if you want
to stream with restify. Note that the event below is unfortunately
named result and not response (because
Event 'response'
is already used).

`javascript
client = restify.createClient({
url: 'http://127.0.0.1'
});

client.get('/str/mcavage', function(err, req) {
assert.ifError(err); // connection error

req.on('result', function(err, res) {
assert.ifError(err); // HTTP status code >= 400

res.body = '';
res.setEncoding('utf8');
res.on('data', function(chunk) {
res.body += chunk;
});

res.on('end', function() {
console.log(res.body);
});
});
});
`

Or a write:

`javascript
client.post(opts, function(err, req) {
assert.ifError(connectErr);

req.on('result', function(err, res) {
assert.ifError(err);
res.body = '';
res.setEncoding('utf8');
res.on('data', function(chunk) {
res.body += chunk;
});

res.on('end', function() {
console.log(res.body);
});
});

req.write('hello world');
req.end();
});
`

Note that get/head/del all call req.end() for you, so you can't
write data over those. Otherwise, all the same methods exist as
JsonClient/StringClient.

One wishing to extend the HttpClient should look at the internals
and note that read and write probably need to be overridden.

#### Proxy

A restify client can use an HTTP proxy, either via options to createClient
or via the http_proxy, https_proxy, and NO_PROXY environment variables
common in many tools (e.g., curl).

`javascript
restify.createClient({
proxy: ,
noProxy:
});
`

The proxy option to createClient specifies the proxy URL, for example:

`javascript
proxy: 'http://user:password@example.com:4321'
`

Or a proxy object can be given. (Warning: the proxyAuth field is not what
a simple require('url').parse() will produce if your proxy URL has auth
info.)

`javascript
proxy: {
protocol: 'http:',
host: 'example.com',
port: 4321,
proxyAuth: 'user:password'
}
`

Or proxy: false can be given to explicitly disable using a proxy -- i.e. to
ensure a proxy URL is not picked up from environment variables.

If not specified, then the following environment variables (in the given order)
are used to pick up a proxy URL:

HTTPS_PROXY
https_proxy
HTTP_PROXY
http_proxy

Note: A future major version of restify(-clients) might change this environment
variable behaviour. See the discussion on this issue.


The noProxy option can be used to exclude some hosts from using a given
proxy. If it is not specified, then the NO_PROXY or no_proxy environment
variable is used. Use noProxy: '' to override a possible environment variable,
but not match any hosts.

The value is a string giving a comma-separated set of host, host-part suffix, or
the special '*' to indicate all hosts. (Its definition is intended to match
curl's NO_PROXY environment variable.) Some examples:


$ export NO_PROXY='*' # don't proxy requests to any urls
$ export NO_PROXY='127.0.0.1' # don't proxy requests the localhost IP
$ export NO_PROXY='localhost:8000' # ... 'localhost' hostname and port 8000
$ export NO_PROXY='google.com' # ... "google.com" and "*.google.com"
$ export NO_PROXY='www.google.com' # ... "www.google.com"
$ export NO_PROXY='127.0.0.1, google.com' # multiple hosts

Note: The url being requested must match the full hostname or hostname
part to a '.': NO_PROXY=oogle.com does not match "google.com". DNS lookups are
not performed to determine the IP address of a hostname.


#### basicAuth(username, password)

Since it hasn't been mentioned yet, this convenience method (available
on all clients), just sets the Authorization header for all HTTP requests:

`javascript
client.basicAuth('mark', 'mysupersecretpassword');
`

#### Upgrades

If you successfully negotiate an Upgrade with the HTTP server, an
upgradeResult event will be emitted with the arguments err, res, socket
and head. You can use this functionality to establish a WebSockets
connection with a server. For example, using the
watershed library:

`javascript
var ws = new Watershed();
var wskey = ws.generateKey();
var options = {
path: '/websockets/attach',
headers: {
connection: 'upgrade',
upgrade: 'websocket',
'sec-websocket-key': wskey,
}
};
client.get(options, function(err, res, socket, head) {
res.once('upgradeResult', function(err2, res2, socket2, head2) {
var shed = ws.connect(res2, socket2, head2, wskey);
shed.on('text', function(msg) {
console.log('message from server: ' + msg);
shed.end();
});
shed.send('greetings program');
});
});
`

$3

The following methods are shared by all versions of the client:

#### inflightRequests()

Returns the number of inflight requests the client is currently handling. The
request count is incremented as soon as a verb method is called, which means
that an inflight request is defined as a request that is in any of the
following states:

* after the verb function is called but before any I/O
* waiting on I/O (dns resolution, socket connection, server response, etc.)
* request serialization (uploading of req bodies, etc.)
* response marshalling/consumption

The counter is decremented when the response's end event is emitted, or when
the request's error event is emitted.

$3

The client emits the following events:

#### client.on('timings', function(timings) {... });
Per request timings are available under the req.getTimings() or emitted from
the client via a timings event in milliseconds:

`javascript
{
dnsLookup: 34,
tcpConnection: 52,
tlsHandshake: 112,
firstByte: 66,
contentTransfer: 2,
total: 266
}
`

All timings except total can be null under various circumstances like
keep-alive connection, missing https etc.

#### client.on('metrics', function(metrics) {... });
Per request metrics are available under the req.getMetrics() method, and are
also emitted from the client via a metrics event:

`javascript
{
statusCode: 200,
method: 'POST',
success: true,
path: '/foo/bar',
url: 'http://netflix.com',
timings: {
dnsLookup: 34,
tcpConnection: 52,
tlsHandshake: 112,
firstByte: 66,
contentTransfer: 2,
total: 266
}
}
`

#### client.on('after', function(req, res, err) {... });
The client will emit an after event after each completed request
(successful or not). This can be useful for attaching after handlers to report
metrics or other useful information about the client. When using this event,
the timings and metrics information is available via the request getters,
req.getTimings() and req.getMetrics().

For the StringClient and JSONClient, the after event is fired after the
response has been received and parsed. For the HttpClient, usage is a bit more
nuanced, which will be covered below.

##### Using the after event with the HttpClient

As the low level HttpClient's callback interface exposes the associated request
and response streams directly to the consumer, there are a few caveats around
using after with the HttpClient. Consumers must consume the response stream
(by consuming the data event on the response) in order for the after event
to be fired. For example, here's how an HttpClient instance consumes the
response's data to trigger the after event:

`javascript
httpClient.get('/200', function (err, req) {
req.on('result', function (err, res) {
let body = '';
// must consume the stream first
res.on('data', function (chunk) {
body += chunk;
});
});
});

httpClient.once('after', function (req, res, err) {
// this is fired after response's end event.
});
`

Another effect due to the low level nature of HttpClient means that any errors
created in the consuming callback will not be available automatically in
the after event. For example, if you get a 500, but then determine that your
payload has some bad or malformed data, or you encounter an error while
consuming your stream, it's your responsibility to propagate that back to
after if you want to consume it later:

`javascript
httpClient.get('/500', function (err, req) {
req.on('result', function (err, res) {
// err is an InternalServerError here. but a 500 could still return
// some data like an error message, so let's parse the response now.
res.on('data', function (chunk) {
// parse the chunks here...
// oh no, bad data! but how do I get this error to the after event?
var invalidDataError = new Error('invalid data format!');
// attach it to the req or res object
req.httpClientError = invalidDataError;
});
});
});

httpClient.once('after', function (req, res, err) {
// err will be an InternalServerError, and req.httpClientError will be your
// custom error.
});
`

In timeout scenarios (connection timeout or request timeout), there is no
response to consume, in which case the client's after event is fired at the
same time as the req's result event.

Contributing

Add unit tests for any new or changed functionality. Ensure that lint and style
checks pass. Ensure that your commit messages follow the conventional
commits
specification.

To start contributing, install the git pre-push hooks:

`sh
make githooks
`

Before committing, run the prepush hook:

`sh
make prepush
`

If you have style errors, you can auto fix whitespace issues by running:

`sh
make codestyle-fix
`

$3

In order to release a new version of the restify-clients module:

`sh
make release
`

This will run the release target, which will:

1. Automatically update the changelog.
2. Automatically bump the version number appropriate, using the conventional
commit messages found in the git history since the last release.
3. Push the git tags up to origin
4. Call npm publish`

License

Copyright (c) 2015 Alex Liu

Licensed under the MIT license.