simple example of server side requests in node.js

mocha-request-test.js

var request = require('./request'),
    expect = require('expect.js');

describe('Request Library Test Suite', function() {

  it('should be able to handle a GET request to github', function(done) {
    var opts = {
      url: 'https://api.github.com/users/dhigginbotham',
      headers: {
        'User-Agent': 'dhigginbotham',
        'Content-Type': 'application/json; charset=utf-8'
      }
    };
    
    request(opts, function(err, resp) {
      if (err) return done(err);
      expect(err).to.be(null);
      return done();
    });
  });

});

request.js

// 
// Request Library
// ------------------------------------
// @author: [email protected]
// @license: MIT
// 

var http = require('http');
var https = require('https');
var url = require('url');
var helpers = require('./helpers');

function onEnd(resp, bytes, fn) {
  var r = resp || [],
      resp = (bytes ? new Buffer(bytes) : null),
      copied = 0;
  if (r.length) {
    for (var i=0;i<r.length;++i) {
      r[i].copy(resp, copied, 0);
      copied += r[i].length;
    }
  }
  return fn(resp);
}

function translation(settings, secured) {

  if (typeof settings == 'boolean' && 
      typeof secured == 'undefined') return {};

  var translate = {
    host: null,
    path: '',
    method: 'GET',
    data: {},
    headers: {
      'Content-type': 'application/json; charset=utf-8'
    }
  };

  if (secured && (!settings.hasOwnProperty('port'))) {
    translate.port = 443;
  }

  if (Object.keys(settings.headers).length) {
    helpers.merge(translate.headers, settings.headers);
  }

  if (Object.keys(settings.data).length) {
    helpers.merge(translate.data, settings.data);
  }

  translate.host = settings.url.host;
  translate.path = settings.url.pathname;
  translate.agent = false;
  translate.secureOptions = require('constants').SSL_OP_NO_TLSv1_2;
  if (translate.data) translate.data = JSON.stringify(translate.data);

  return translate;

}

// Public request method
function request(options, fn) {

  var req, _req, settings, secured, translate;

  settings = {
    url: null,
    method: 'GET',
    data: {},
    headers: {},
    params: {}
  };

  if (options) helpers.merge(settings, options);

  settings.url = (settings.url ? url.parse(settings.url) : null);

  // detect if we're using a secure schema
  secured = settings.url.protocol.indexOf("https") > -1;

  if (settings.url) {

    // build translation object
    translate = translation(settings, secured);

    // check whether or not to fired secured
    // or not
    _req = (secured ? https : http);

    req = _req.request(translate, function (res) {
      var bytes = 0, resp = [];

      res.on('data', function(chunk) {
        if (chunk) resp.push(chunk);
        bytes += chunk.length;
      });

      res.on('end', function() {
        onEnd(resp, bytes, function(resp){
          return fn(null, resp);
        });
      });

    }).on('error', function(e) {
      return fn(e, null);
    })

    // write the data if its there
    if (Object.keys(settings.data).length) {
      req.write(translate.data);
    }

    req.end();

  } else {
    return fn(new Error('You must provide a url to request'), null);
  }

}

module.exports = request;