DistributeJS http-request-handler

Introduction

DistributeJS http-request-handler is a HTTP request handler for applications in Node.js.

Supported servers and clients

DistributeJS http-request-handler works with:

• Http2SecureServer with HTTP/2 client
• Http2SecureServer with HTTP/1.x client
• Http2Server with HTTP/2 client
• Server from "http" module with HTTP/1.x client
• Server from "https" module with HTTP/1.x client

Features

The request handler includes the following features:

• CORS handling
• HEAD method requests handling
• OPTIONS method requests handling
• Routing

Usage

Basic usage

Create an instance of HttpRequestHandler with sample operations and call the handleRequest method from the server's request handler function, passing request and response arguments.

const operations = [
    {
        fulfil: async(context, request, response) => {
            response.end();
        },
        method: "GET",
        path: "/items",
    },
    {
        fulfil: async(context, request, response) => {
            response.end();
        },
        method: "POST",
        path: "/items",
    },
];

const httpRequestHandler = new HttpRequestHandler(operations);

server.on("request", (request, response) => {
    httpRequestHandler.handleRequest(request, response);
});

Operations

An Operation object must contain properties:

• fulfil - async function with custom logic for the Operation
• method - HTTP method, one of DELETE, GET, PATCH, POST, PUT
• pathTemplate - path template (see Path templates section below)

An Operation object may also contain properties:

• cors - CORS handling settings (see CORS settings below)

Path templates

Path templates define paths and path parameters for the Operation.

Parameter types available:

• :parameterName - parameter matching one URL segment, produces a string representing matched segment
• :parameterName* - parameter matching a zero or more URL segments, produces an array string representing matched segments
• :parameterName+ - parameter matching a one or more URL segments, produces an array string representing matched segments

CORS settings

A CORS settings object must contain properties:

• enabled - boolean indicating whether CORS handling is supported for the Operation
• origins - list of allowed origins, may include * wildcard

A CORS settings object may contain properties:

• allowedHeaders - list of headers against which to verify headers specified in the Access-Control-Request-Headers sent in a preflight request
• exposedHeaders - list of headers for Access-Control-Expose-Headers header returned in response to a simple cross-origin request
• max-age - value for Access-Control-Max-Age header returned in response to a preflight request

Fulfil function

The fulfil function holds the custom logic for the Operation. This function has 3 parameters:

• context - object with properties:
  • pathArgs - arguements extracted from the request URI, as per the path pattern for the Operation
  • url - request URL, an instance of URL class from "url" module
• request - instance of Http2ServerRequest or IncomingMessage for HTTP/2 and HTTP/1.x requests respectively
• response - instance of Http2ServerResponse or ServerResponse for HTTP/2 and HTTP/1.x requests respectively

Developers

Generating test cert and key files

Test cert and key files, necessary for running tests, are not included in the repository and need to be generated. They are automatically generated as part of "pretest" script. If you usually run tests using a different method than calling npm test, run npm test once to generate these files.