How do I get the redirected url from the nodejs request module?
node.jsModuleRequestnode.js Problem Overview
I'm trying to follow through on a url that redirects me to another page using the nodejs request module.
Combing through the docs I could not find anything that allows me to retrieve the url after the redirect.
My code is as follows:
var request = require("request"),
options = {
uri: 'http://www.someredirect.com/somepage.asp',
timeout: 2000,
followAllRedirects: true
};
request( options, function(error, response, body) {
console.log( response );
});
node.js Solutions
Solution 1 - node.js
There are two very easy ways to get hold of the last url in a chain of redirects.
var r = request(url, function (e, response) {
r.uri
response.request.uri
})
The uri is a object. uri.href contains the url, with query parameters, as a string.
The code comes from a comment on a github issue by request's creator: https://github.com/mikeal/request/pull/220#issuecomment-5012579
Example:
var request = require('request');
var r = request.get('http://google.com?q=foo', function (err, res, body) {
console.log(r.uri.href);
console.log(res.request.uri.href);
// Mikael doesn't mention getting the uri using 'this' so maybe it's best to avoid it
// please add a comment if you know why this might be bad
console.log(this.uri.href);
});
This will print http://www.google.com/?q=foo three times (note that we were redirected to an address with www from one without).
Solution 2 - node.js
To find the redirect url try this:
var url = 'http://www.google.com';
request({ url: url, followRedirect: false }, function (err, res, body) {
console.log(res.headers.location);
});
Solution 3 - node.js
request gets redirects by default, it can get through 10 redirects by default. You can check this in the docs. Downside of this is that you would not know if url you get is a redirected one or original one by default options.
For example:
request('http://www.google.com', function (error, response, body) {
console.log(response.headers)
console.log(body) // Print the google web page.
})
gives output
> { date: 'Wed, 22 May 2013 15:11:58 GMT',
expires: '-1',
'cache-control': 'private, max-age=0',
'content-type': 'text/html; charset=ISO-8859-1',
server: 'gws',
'x-xss-protection': '1; mode=block',
'x-frame-options': 'SAMEORIGIN',
'transfer-encoding': 'chunked' }
but if you give option followRedirect as false
request({url:'http://www.google.com',followRedirect :false}, function (error, response, body) {
console.log(response.headers)
console.log(body)
});
it gives
> { location: 'http://www.google.co.in/',
'cache-control': 'private',
'content-type': 'text/html; charset=UTF-8',
date: 'Wed, 22 May 2013 15:12:27 GMT',
server: 'gws',
'content-length': '221',
'x-xss-protection': '1; mode=block',
'x-frame-options': 'SAMEORIGIN' }
<HTML><HEAD><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html;charset=utf-8">
<TITLE>302 Moved</TITLE></HEAD><BODY>
<H1>302 Moved</H1>
The document has moved
<A HREF="http://www.google.co.in/">here</A>.
</BODY></HTML>
So don't worry about getting the redirected content. But if you want to know if it is redirected or not set followRedirect false and check the location header in the response.
Solution 4 - node.js
You can use the function form for followRedirect (rather than followAllRedirects), like this:
options.followRedirect = function(response) {
var url = require('url');
var from = response.request.href;
var to = url.resolve(response.headers.location, response.request.href);
return true;
};
request(options, function(error, response, body) {
// normal code
});
Solution 5 - node.js
If you use axios, you can fetch the redirected url like below,
axios({
method: 'GET',
url: URL,
params: {
}
})
.then((response) => {
return response.request._redirectable._options.href;
})
.catch(error => {
return error;
});