Introduction to follow-redirects

follow-redirects is a versatile Node.js library designed to handle HTTP and HTTPS requests while seamlessly following redirects. This functionality is essential for developing applications that need to interact with web services and APIs efficiently.

Getting Started

To begin using follow-redirects, you need to install it using npm:

  npm install follow-redirects

Basic Usage

Here is a simple example of using follow-redirects:

  const { http, https } = require('follow-redirects');

  https.get('https://example.com', (response) => {
    response.on('data', (chunk) => {
      console.log(chunk.toString());
    });
  });

API Examples

1. HTTP GET Request

  const { http } = require('follow-redirects');

  http.get('http://example.com', (response) => {
    let data = '';
    response.on('data', (chunk) => {
      data += chunk;
    });
    response.on('end', () => {
      console.log(data);
    });
  });

2. HTTPS POST Request

  const { https } = require('follow-redirects');
  const data = JSON.stringify({ key: 'value' });

  const options = {
    hostname: 'example.com',
    port: 443,
    path: '/path',
    method: 'POST',
    headers: {
      'Content-Type': 'application/json',
      'Content-Length': data.length,
    },
  };

  const req = https.request(options, (res) => {
    let responseBody = '';
    res.on('data', (chunk) => {
      responseBody += chunk;
    });
    res.on('end', () => {
      console.log(responseBody);
    });
  });

  req.write(data);
  req.end();

3. Handling Redirects

  const { http } = require('follow-redirects');

  const options = {
    maxRedirects: 5,
    hostname: 'example.com',
    path: '/redirect',
    method: 'GET',
  };

  http.get(options, (response) => {
    response.on('data', (chunk) => {
      console.log(chunk.toString());
    });
  });

App Example

Let’s build a small application utilizing follow-redirects:

  const { https } = require('follow-redirects');
  const express = require('express');
  const app = express();

  app.get('/fetch-data', (req, res) => {
    https.get('https://api.example.com/data', (apiRes) => {
      let data = '';
      apiRes.on('data', (chunk) => {
        data += chunk;
      });
      apiRes.on('end', () => {
        res.send(data);
      });
    });
  });

  app.listen(3000, () => {
    console.log('Server is running on port 3000');
  });

In this example, we create an Express.js server that fetches data from an external API. The server listens on port 3000 and provides an endpoint /fetch-data that returns the data fetched from the API.

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