README

http-browserify-xdr

The http module from browserify, but for browsers that can only do cross-origin requests with XDomainRequest (IE8 & IE9).

The out-of-the-box [http-browserify] does not work for cross-origin requests with XDomainRequest, and an open issue has gone unresponded to for almost 3 years.

Use this in your browserify project by adding the following to your package.json:

"browser": {
    "http": "http-browserify-xdr"
}

Note: XDomainRequests cannot send cookies, so 'withCredentials' options will be ignored. The way to do cross-origin requests withCredentials in these browsers is, well, you can't. You have to open an iframe serving a src on the origin you want to request, then postMessage into it, have it make the request, then postMessage the response out. See sockjs-client for a referenc eimplementation of that.

The following is the original http-browserify README because the API is the same.

example

var http = require('http');

http.get({ host: 'anotherorigin.com', path : '/beep' }, function (res) {
    var div = document.getElementById('result');
    div.innerHTML += 'GET /beep<br>';
    
    res.on('data', function (buf) {
        div.innerHTML += buf;
    });
    
    res.on('end', function () {
        div.innerHTML += '<br>__END__';
    });
});

http methods

var http = require('http');

var req = http.request(opts, cb)

where opts are:

opts.method='GET' - http method verb
opts.path - path string, example: '/foo/bar?baz=555'
opts.headers={} - as an object mapping key names to string or Array values
opts.host=window.location.host - http host
opts.port=window.location.port - http port
opts.responseType - response type to set on the underlying xhr object

The callback will be called with the response object.

var req = http.get(options, cb)

A shortcut for

options.method = 'GET';
var req = http.request(options, cb);
req.end();

request methods

req.setHeader(key, value)

Set an http header.

req.getHeader(key)

Get an http header.

req.removeHeader(key)

Remove an http header.

req.write(data)

Write some data to the request body.

req.end(data)

Close and send the request body, optionally with additional data to append.

response methods

res.getHeader(key)

Return an http header, if set. key is case-insensitive.

response attributes

res.statusCode, the numeric http response code
res.headers, an object with all lowercase keys

compatibility

This module has been tested and works with:

Internet Explorer 5.5, 6, 7, 8, 9
Firefox 3.5
Chrome 7.0
Opera 10.6
Safari 5.0

Multipart streaming responses are buffered in all versions of Internet Explorer and are somewhat buffered in Opera. In all the other browsers you get a nice unbuffered stream of "data" events when you send down a content-type of multipart/octet-stream or similar.

protip

You can do:

var bundle = browserify({
    require : { http : 'http-browserify-xdr' }
});

in order to map "http-browserify-xdr" over require('http') in your browserified source.

install

With npm do:

npm install http-browserify-xdr

license

MIT

Usage no npm install needed!