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Requests Build Status GoDoc Go Report Card

A.K.A "Yet Another Golang Requests Package"

EXPERIMENTAL: Until the version reaches 1.0, the API may change.

Requests makes it a bit simpler to use Go's http package as a client. As an example, take a simple request, with the http package:

req, err := http.NewRequest("GET", "http://www.google.com", nil)
if err != nil { return err }

resp, err := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)
if err != nil { return err }

defer resp.Body.Close()
if resp.StatusCode == 200 {
    respBody, _ := ioutil.ReadAll(resp.Body)
    fmt.Println(string(respBody))
}

With requests:

resp, body, err := requests.Receive(nil, requests.Get("http://www.google.com"))
if err != nil { return err }

fmt.Printf("%d %s", resp.StatusCode, body)

For a more complex use case, take an API call, which sends and receives JSON.
With http:

bodyBytes, err := json.Marshal(reqBodyStruct)
if err != nil { return err }

req, err := http.NewRequest("POST", "http://api.com/resources/", bytes.NewReader(bodyBytes))
if err != nil { return err }
req.Header.Set("Content-Type", "application/json")
req.Header.Set("Accept", "application/json"

resp, err := http.DefaultClient.Do(req)
if err != nil { return err }

if resp.StatusCode == 201 {
    respBody, _ := ioutil.ReadAll(resp.Body)
    var respStruct Resource
    err := json.Unmarshal(respBody, &respStruct)
    if err != nil { return err }
    
    fmt.Println(respBody)
}

With requests:

var respStruct Resource

resp, body, err := requests.Receive(&respStruct, 
    requests.JSON(),
    requests.Get("http://www.google.com")
)
if err != nil { return err }
    
fmt.Printf("%d %s %v", resp.StatusCode, body, respStruct)

Requests revolves around the use of Options, which are arguments to the functions which create and/or send requests. Options can be be used to set headers, query parameters, compose the URL, set the method, install middleware, configure or replace the HTTP client used to send the request, etc.

The package-level Request(...Option) function creates an (unsent) *http.Request:

req, err := requests.Request(Get("http://www.google.com"))

The Do(...Option) function both creates the request and sends it, using the http.DefaultClient:

resp, err := requests.Do(Get("http://www.google.com"))

A raw *http.Response is returned. It is the caller's responsibility to close the response body, just as with http.Client's Do() method.

The package also has Receive(interface{}, ...Option) and ReceiveFull(interface{},interface{},...Option) functions which handle reading the response and optionally unmarshaling the body into a struct:

var user User
resp, body, err := requests.Receive(&user, requests.Get("http://api.com/users/bob"))

The Receive*() functions read and close the response body for you, return the entire response body as a string, and optionally unmarshal the response body into a struct. If you only want the body back as a string, pass nil as the first argument. The string body is returned either way. Requests can handle JSON and XML response bodies, as determined by the response's Content-Type header. Other types of bodies can be handled by using a custom Unmarshaler.

If you have an API which returns structured non-2XX responses (like an error response JSON body), you can use the ReceiveFull() function to pass an alternate struct value to unmarhal the error response body into:

 var user User
 var apiError APIError
 resp, body, err := requests.ReceiveFull(&user, &apiError, requests.Get("http://api.com/users/bob"))

All these functions have *Context() variants, which add a context.Context to the request. This is particularly useful for setting a request timeout:

ctx = context.WithTimeout(ctx, 10 * time.Second)
requests.RequestContext(ctx, Get("http://www.google.com"))
requests.DoContext(ctx, Get("http://www.google.com"))
requests.ReceiveContext(ctx, &into, Get("http://www.google.com"))
requests.ReceiveFullContext(ctx, &into, &apierr, Get("http://www.google.com"))

Requests Instance

The package level functions just delegate to the DefaultRequests variable, which holds a Requests instance. An instance of Requests is useful for building a re-usable, composable HTTP client.

A new Requests can be constructed with New(...Options):

reqs, err := requests.New(
    requests.Get("http://api.server/resources/1"), 
    requests.JSON(), 
    requests.Accept(requests.ContentTypeJSON)
)

...or can be created with a literal:

u, err := url.Parse("http://api.server/resources/1")
if err != nil { return err }

reqs := &Requests{
    URL: u,
    Method: "GET",
    Header: http.Header{
        requests.HeaderContentType: []string{requests.ContentTypeJSON),
        requests.HeaderAccept: []string{requests.ContentTypeJSON),
    },
}

Additional options can be applied with Apply():

err := reqs.Apply(requests.Method("POST"), requests.Body(bodyStruct))
if err != nil { return err }

...or can just be set directly:

reqs.Method = "POST"
reqs.Body = bodyStruct

Requests can be cloned, creating a copy which can be further configured:

base, _ := requests.New(
    requests.URL("https://api.com"), 
    requests.JSON(),
    requests.Accept(requests.ContentTypeJSON),
    requests.BearerAuth(token),
)
    
getResource = base.Clone()
getResource.Apply(requests.RelativeURL("resources/1"))

With(...Option) combines Clone() and Apply(...Option):

getResource, _ := base.With(requests.RelativeURL("resources/1"))

Options can also be passed to the Request/Do/Receive* methods. These Options will only be applied to the particular request, not the Requests instance:

resp, body, err := base.Receive(nil, requests.Get("resources", "1")  // path elements
                                                                     // will be joined.

Request Options

The Requests struct has attributes mirror counterparts on *http.Request:

Method string
URL    *url.URL
Header http.Header
GetBody          func() (io.ReadCloser, error)
ContentLength    int64
TransferEncoding []string
Close            bool
Host             string
Trailer          http.Header

If not set, the constructed *http.Requests will have the normal default values these attributes have after calling http.NewRequest() (some attributes will be initialized, some remained zeroed).

If set, then the Requests' values will overwrite the values of these attributes in the *http.Request.

Functional Options are defined which set most of these attributes. You can configure Requests either by applying Options, or by simply setting the attributes directly.

Client Options

The HTTP client used to execute requests can also be customized through options:

requests.Do(requests.Get("https://api.com"), requests.Client(clients.SkipVerify()))

github.com/gemalto/requests/clients is a standalone package for constructing and configuring http.Clients. The requests.Client(...clients.Option) option constructs a new HTTP client and installs it into Requests.Doer.

Query Params

The QueryParams attribute will be merged into any query parameters encoded into the URL. For example:

reqs, _ := requests.New(requests.URL("http://test.com?color=red"))
reqs.QueryParams = url.Values("flavor":[]string{"vanilla"})
r, _ := reqs.Request()
r.URL.String()             // http://test.com?color=red&flavor=vanilla

The QueryParams() option can take a map[string]interface{} or url.Values, or accepts a struct value, which is marshaled into a url.Values using github.com/google/go-querystring:

type Params struct {
    Color string `url:"color"`
}

reqs, _ := requests.New(
    requests.URL("http://test.com"),
    requests.QueryParams(Params{Color:"blue"}),
    requests.QueryParams(map[string][]string{"flavor":[]string{"vanilla"}}),
)
r, _ := reqs.Request()
r.URL.String()             // http://test.com?color=blue,flavor=vanilla

Body

If Requests.Body is set to a string, []byte, or io.Reader, the value will be used directly as the request body:

req, _ := requests.Request(
    requests.Post("http://api.com"),
    requests.ContentType(requests.ContentTypeJSON),
    requests.Body(`{"color":"red"}`),
)
httputil.DumpRequest(req, true)

// POST / HTTP/1.1
// Host: api.com
// Content-Type: application/json
// 
// {"color":"red"}

If Body is any other value, it will be marshaled into the body, using the Marshaler:

type Resource struct {
    Color string `json:"color"`
}

req, _ := requests.Request(
    requests.Post("http://api.com"),
    requests.Body(Resource{Color:"red"}),
)
httputil.DumpRequest(req, true)

// POST / HTTP/1.1
// Host: api.com
// Content-Type: application/json
// 
// {"color":"red"}

Note the default marshaler is JSON, and sets the Content-Type header.

Receive

Receive() handles the response as well:

type Resource struct {
    Color string `json:"color"`
}

var res Resource

resp, body, err := requests.Receive(&res, requests.Get("http://api.com/resources/1")
if err != nil { return err }

fmt.Println(body)     // {"color":"red"}

The body of the response is returned as a string. If the first argument is not nil, the body will also be unmarshaled into that value.

By default, the unmarshaler will use the response's Content-Type header to determine how to unmarshal the response body into a struct. This can be customized by setting Requests.Unmarshaler:

reqs.Unmarshaler = &requests.XML(true)                  // via assignment
reqs.Apply(requests.Unmarshaler(&requests.XML(true)))   // or via an Option

Doer and Middleware

Requests uses an implementation of Doer to execute requests. By default, http.DefaultClient is used, but this can be replaced by a customize client, or a mock Doer:

reqs.Doer = requests.DoerFunc(func(req *http.Request) (*http.Response, error) {
    return &http.Response{}
})

You can also install middleware into Requests, which can intercept the request and response:

mw := func(next requests.Doer) requests.Doer {
    return requests.DoerFunc(func(req *http.Request) (*http.Response, error) {
        fmt.Println(httputil.DumpRequest(req, true))
        resp, err := next(req)
        if err == nil { 
            fmt.Println(httputil.DumpResponse(resp, true))
        }
        return resp, err
    })
}
reqs.Middleware = append(reqs.Middleware, mw)   // via assignment
reqs.Apply(requests.Use(mw))                    // or via option

FAQ

  • Why, when there are like, 50 other packages that do the exact same thing?

Yeah, good question. This library started as a few tweaks to https://github.com/dghubble/sling. Then it became more of a fork, then a complete rewrite, inspiration from a bunch of other similar libraries.

A few things bugged me about other libraries:

  1. Some didn't offer enough control over the base http primitives, like the underlying http.Client, and all the esoteric attributes of http.Request.

  2. I wanted more control over marshaling and unmarshaling bodies, without sacrificing access to the raw body.

  3. Some libraries which offer lots more control or options also seemed to be much more complicated, or less idiomatic.

  4. Most libraries don't handle context.Contexts at all.

  5. The main thing: most other libraries use a "fluent" API, where you call methods on a builder instance to configure the request, and these methods each return the builder, making it simple to call the next method, something like this:

     req.Get("http://api.com").Header("Content-Type", "application/json").Body(reqBody)

    I used to like fluent APIs in other languages, but they don't feel right in Go. You typically end up deferring errors until later, so the error doesn't surface near the code that caused the error. Its difficult to mix fluent APIs with interfaces, because the concrete types tend to have lots of methods, and they all have to return the same concrete type. For the same reason, it's awkward to embed types with fluent APIs. Fluent APIs also make it hard to extend the library with additional, external options.

Requests swaps a fluent API for the functional option pattern. This hopefully keeps a fluent-like coding style, while being more idiomatic Go. Since Options are just a simple interface, it's easy to bring your own options, or contribute new options back to this library.

Also, making the options into objects improved ergonomics in a few places, like mirroring the main functions (Request(), Do(), Receive()) on the struct and the package. Options can be passed around as arguments or accumulated in slices.