request-debug

This Node.js module provides an easy way to monitor HTTP(S) requests performed by the request module, and their responses from external servers.

Usage

Basic usage is to require the module and call it, passing in the object returned by require('request'):

var request = require('request');
 
require('request-debug')(request);

This will set up event handlers on every request performed with the request variable from this point.

You can also specify a function to handle request or response data:

require('request-debug')(request, function(type, data, r) {
    // put your request or response handling logic here
});

If you specify your own handling function, r will be the Request instance that generated the event, and type will be one of the following values:

• request - Headers were sent to the server and will be included as data.headers. data.body may also be present for POST requests.

• response - Headers were received from the server and will be included as data.headers. Note that request only buffers the response body if a callback was given, so it will only be available as data.body if the initial call to request included a callback.

• redirect - A redirect status code (HTTP 3xx) was received. The data object will have properties statusCode, headers, and uri (the address of the next request).

• auth - A HTTP 401 Unathorized response was received. Internally, request handles this like a redirect, so the same properties will be available on the data object.

You can use the data.debugId parameter to match up requests with their responses and other events.

The default handling function writes the data to stderr in Node's JSON-like object display format. See the example below for more details.

To disable debugging, call request.stopDebugging() (this function only exists if debugging has already been enabled). Any requests that are in progress when stopDebugging() is called will still generate debug events.

Example

var request = require('request');
 
require('request-debug')(request);
 
// digest.php is example 2 from:
// http://php.net/manual/en/features.http-auth.php
 
request({
    uri  : 'http://nylen.tv/digest.php',
    auth : {
        user : 'admin',
        pass : 'mypass',
        sendImmediately : false
    },
    rejectUnauthorized : false,
}, function(err, res, body) {
    console.log('REQUEST RESULTS:', err, res.statusCode, body);
});

Unless you provide your own function as the second parameter to the request-debug call, this will produce console output similar to the following:

{ request:
   { debugId: 1,
     uri: 'http://nylen.tv/digest.php',
     method: 'GET',
     headers: { host: 'nylen.tv' } } }
{ auth:
   { debugId: 1,
     statusCode: 401,
     headers:
      { date: 'Mon, 20 Oct 2014 03:34:58 GMT',
        server: 'Apache/2.4.6 (Debian)',
        'x-powered-by': 'PHP/5.5.6-1',
        'www-authenticate': 'Digest realm="Restricted area",qop="auth",nonce="544482e2556d9",opaque="cdce8a5c95a1427d74df7acbf41c9ce0"',
        'content-length': '39',
        'keep-alive': 'timeout=5, max=100',
        connection: 'Keep-Alive',
        'content-type': 'text/html' },
     uri: 'http://nylen.tv/digest.php' } }
{ request:
   { debugId: 1,
     uri: 'http://nylen.tv/digest.php',
     method: 'GET',
     headers:
      { authorization: 'Digest username="admin", realm="Restricted area", nonce="544482e2556d9", uri="/digest.php", qop=auth, response="e833c7fa52e8d42fae3ca784b96dfd38", nc=00000001, cnonce="ab6ff3dd95a0449e990a6c8465a6bb26", opaque="cdce8a5c95a1427d74df7acbf41c9ce0"',
        host: 'nylen.tv' } } }
{ response:
   { debugId: 1,
     headers:
      { date: 'Mon, 20 Oct 2014 03:34:58 GMT',
        server: 'Apache/2.4.6 (Debian)',
        'x-powered-by': 'PHP/5.5.6-1',
        'content-length': '27',
        'keep-alive': 'timeout=5, max=100',
        connection: 'Keep-Alive',
        'content-type': 'text/html' },
     statusCode: 200,
     body: 'You are logged in as: admin' } }
REQUEST RESULTS: null 200 You are logged in as: admin

Compatibility

Tested with Node.js versions 0.8.x, 0.10.x, and 0.11.x on Travis, and a bunch of different request versions.

Does not work with request versions older than 2.22.0 (July 2013). Tests don't start passing until version 2.28.0 (December 2013).