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Thefastest feature-rich URL transfer library for Node.js.

libcurl bindings for Node.js. libcurl official description:

libcurl is a free and easy-to-use client-side URL transfer library, supporting DICT, FILE, FTP, FTPS, Gopher, HTTP, HTTPS, IMAP, IMAPS, LDAP, LDAPS, POP3, POP3S, RTMP, RTSP, SCP, SFTP, SMTP, SMTPS, Telnet and TFTP. libcurl supports SSL certificates, HTTP POST, HTTP PUT, FTP uploading, HTTP form based upload, proxies, cookies, user+password authentication (Basic, Digest, NTLM, Negotiate, Kerberos), file transfer resume, http proxy tunneling and more!

• Quick Start
  • Install
  • Simple Request - Async / Await using curly
  • Simple Request - Using Curl class
  • Setting HTTP headers
  • Form Submission (Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded)
  • MultiPart Upload / HttpPost libcurl Option (Content-Type: multipart/form-data)
  • Binary Data
• SSL
• API
• Special Notes
  • READFUNCTION option
• Common Issues
• Benchmarks
• Security
• Supported Libcurl Versions
• For Enterprise
• Detailed Installation
  • Important Notes on Prebuilt Binaries / Direct Installation
    • Missing Packages
  • Electron / NW.js
    • NW.js (aka node-webkit)
    • Electron (aka atom-shell)
  • Building on Linux
  • Building on macOS
    • Xcode >= 10 | macOS >= Mojave
  • Building on Windows
    • Note on outdated node-gyp version
• Getting Help
• Contributing
• Donations / Patreon

Note:

• This library cannot be used in a browser, it depends on native code.

npm i node-libcurl --save

or

pnpm i node-libcurl --save

or

yarn add node-libcurl

this API is experimental and is subject to changes without a major version bump

const{ curly}=require('node-libcurl');const{ statusCode, data, headers}=awaitcurly.get('https://www.google.com')

Any option can be passed using theirFULLNAME or alowerPascalCase format:

constquerystring=require('querystring');const{ curly}=require('node-libcurl');const{ statusCode, data, headers}=awaitcurly.post('https://httpbin.com/post',{postFields:querystring.stringify({field:'value',}),// can use `postFields` or `POSTFIELDS`})

JSON POST example:

const{ curly}=require('node-libcurl')const{ data}=awaitcurly.post('https://httpbin.com/post',{postFields:JSON.stringify({field:'value'}),httpHeader:['Content-Type: application/json','Accept: application/json'],})console.log(data)

const{ Curl}=require('node-libcurl');constcurl=newCurl();curl.setOpt('URL','www.google.com');curl.setOpt('FOLLOWLOCATION',true);curl.on('end',function(statusCode,data,headers){console.info(statusCode);console.info('---');console.info(data.length);console.info('---');console.info(this.getInfo('TOTAL_TIME'));this.close();});curl.on('error',curl.close.bind(curl));curl.perform();

Pass an array of strings specifying headers

curl.setOpt(Curl.option.HTTPHEADER,['Content-Type: application/x-amz-json-1.1'])

constquerystring=require('querystring');const{ Curl}=require('node-libcurl');constcurl=newCurl();constclose=curl.close.bind(curl);curl.setOpt(Curl.option.URL,'127.0.0.1/upload');curl.setOpt(Curl.option.POST,true)curl.setOpt(Curl.option.POSTFIELDS,querystring.stringify({field:'value',}));curl.on('end',close);curl.on('error',close);

const{ Curl}=require('node-libcurl');constcurl=newCurl();constclose=curl.close.bind(curl);curl.setOpt(Curl.option.URL,'127.0.0.1/upload.php');curl.setOpt(Curl.option.HTTPPOST,[{name:'input-name',file:'/file/path',type:'text/html'},{name:'input-name2',contents:'field-contents'}]);curl.on('end',close);curl.on('error',close);

When requesting binary data make sure to do one of these:

• Pass your ownWRITEFUNCTION (https://curl.haxx.se/libcurl/c/CURLOPT_WRITEFUNCTION.html):

curl.setOpt('WRITEFUNCTION',(buffer,size,nmemb)=>{// something})

• Enable one of the following flags:

curl.enable(CurlFeature.NoDataParsing)// orcurl.enable(CurlFeature.Raw)

The reasoning behind this is that by default, theCurl instance will try to decode the received data and headers to utf8 strings, as can be seen here:

For more examples check theexamples folder.

API documentation for the latest stable version is available athttps://node-libcurl-docs.netlify.app/modules/lib_index.html.

Develop branch documentation is available athttps://develop--node-libcurl-docs.netlify.app/modules/lib_index.html.

This library provides Typescript type definitions.

Almost allCURL options are supported, if you pass one that is not, an error will be thrown.

For more usage examples check theexamples folder.

The buffer passed as first parameter to the callback set with theREADFUNCTION option is initialized with the size libcurl is using in their upload buffer (which can be set withUPLOAD_BUFFERSIZE), this is initialized usingnode::Buffer::Data(buf); which is basically the same thanBuffer#allocUnsafe and therefore, it has all the implications as to its correct usage:https://nodejs.org/pt-br/docs/guides/buffer-constructor-deprecation/#regarding-buffer-allocunsafe

So, be careful, make sure to returnexactly the amount of data you have written to the buffer on this callback. Only that specific amount is going to be copied and handed over to libcurl.

SeeCOMMON_ISSUES.md

See./benchmark

SeeSECURITY.md

The addon is only tested against libcurl version7.81.0 and the latest one available.

The code itself is only made to compile with versions greater than or equal to7.81.0, any libcurl version lower than that isnot supported.

The 7.81.0 version was released on Jan 5 2022, and it is the version shipped with Ubuntu 22.04. There has been more than 5541 bug fixes on libcurl since then.

node-libcurl is available as part of theTidelift Subscription.

The maintainers of node-libcurl and thousands of other packages are working with Tidelift to deliver commercial support and maintenance for the open source dependencies you use to build your applications. Save time, reduce risk, and improve code health, while paying the maintainers of the exact dependencies you use.Learn more.

The latest version of this package has prebuilt binaries (thanks tonode-pre-gyp)available for:

• Node.js: Latest two versions on active LTS + Current version (seehttps://github.com/nodejs/Release)
• Electron: Latest 2 major versions

And on the following platforms:

• Linux 64 bits & ARM64 & Alpine (musl, 64 bits)
• macOS 64 bits (Intel) & ARM64 (M1+)
• Windows 64 bits

Installing withyarn add node-libcurl ornpm install node-libcurl should download a prebuilt binary and no compilation will be needed. However if you are trying to install onnw.js orelectron additional steps will be required, check their corresponding section below.

The prebuilt binary is statically built with the following library versions, features and protocols (library versions may change between Node.js versions):

Version: libcurl/8.17.0 OpenSSL/3.5.2 zlib/1.3.1 brotli/1.1.0 zstd/1.5.7 libidn2/2.1.1 libssh2/1.10.0 nghttp2/1.66.0 ngtcp2/1.17.0 nghttp3/1.12.0 OpenLDAP/2.6.9Protocols: dict, file, ftp, ftps, gopher, gophers, http, https, imap, imaps, ldap, ldaps, mqtt, pop3, pop3s, rtsp, scp, sftp, smb, smbs, smtp, smtps, telnet, tftp, ws, wssFeatures: AsynchDNS, IDN, IPv6, Largefile, NTLM, SSL, libz, brotli, TLS-SRP, HTTP2, UnixSockets, HTTPS-proxy, alt-svc

If there is no prebuilt binary available that matches your system, or if the installation fails, then you will need an environment capable of compiling Node.js addons, which means:

• python 3.x installed
• updated C++ compiler able to compile C++17 (C++20 for Electron >= v32).

If you don't want to use the prebuilt binary even if it works on your system, you can pass a flag when installing:

Withnpm

npm install node-libcurl --build-from-source

Withyarn

npm_config_build_from_source=true yarn add node-libcurl

Those notes are not important when building on Windows

The prebuilt binaries are statically linked withbrotli,libidn2,libssh2,openLDAP,OpenSSLnghttp2,zstd andzlib.

Thebrotli,nghttp2,OpenSSL andzlib versionsmust match the version Node.js uses, this is necessary to avoid any possible issues by mixing library symbols of different versions, since Node.js also exports some of the symbols of their deps.

In case you are building the addon yourself with the libraries mentioned above, you must make sure their version is ABI compatible with the one Node.js uses, otherwise you are probably going to hit a Segmentation Fault.

If you want to build a statically linked version of the addon yourself, you need to pass thecurl_static_build=true flag when calling install.

If usingnpm:

npm install node-libcurl --build-from-source --curl_static_build=true

If usingyarn orpnpm:

npm_config_build_from_source=true npm_config_curl_static_build=true yarn/pnpm add node-libcurl

The build process will usecurl-config available on path, if you want to overwrite it to your own libcurl installation one, you can set thecurl_config_bin variable, like mentioned above forcurl_static_build.

And if you don't want to usecurl-config, you can pass two extra variables to control the build process:

• curl_include_dirsSpace separated list of directories to search for header files
• curl_librariesSpace separated list of flags to pass to the linker

The statically linked version currently does not have support forGSS-API,SPNEGO,KERBEROS,RTMP,Metalink,PSL andAlt-svc.

The scripts to build Kerberos exists on the./scripts/ci folder, but it was removed for two reasons:

• If built with Heimdal, the addon becomes too big
• If built with MIT Kerberos, the addon would be bound to their licensing terms.

If building for aElectron orNW.js you need to pass additional parameters to the install command.

If you do not want to use the prebuilt binary, pass thenpm_config_build_from_source=true /--build-from-source flag to the install command.

For building from source on NW.js you first need to make sure you have nw-gyp installed globally:yarn global add nw-gyp ornpm i -g nw-gyp orpnpm i -g nw-gyp

If on Windows, you also need addition steps, currently the available win_delay_load_hook.cc onnw-gyp is not working with this addon, so it's necessary to apply a patch to it. The patch can be found on./scripts/ci/patches/win_delay_load_hook.cc.patch, and should be applied to the file on<nw-gyp-folder>/src/win_delay_load_hook.cc.

Then:

yarn

npm_config_runtime=node-webkit npm_config_target=0.38.2 yarn add node-libcurl

npm

npm install node-libcurl --runtime=node-webkit --target=0.38.2 --save

where--target is the current version of NW.js you are using

yarn

npm_config_runtime=electron npm_config_target=X.Y.Z npm_config_disturl=https://www.electronjs.org/headers yarn add node-libcurl

npm

npm install node-libcurl --runtime=electron --target=X.Y.Z --disturl=https://www.electronjs.org/headers --save

Where--target is the version of electron you are using, in our case, we are just using the version returned by the locally installedelectron binary.

You can also put those args in a .npmrc file, like so:

runtime = electrontarget = 5.0.1target_arch = x64dist_url = https://atom.io/download/atom-shell

To build the addon on linux based systems you must have:

• gcc >= 7
• libcurl dev files
• python >= 3
• OS that is not past their EOL.

If you are on a debian based system, you can get those by running:

sudo apt-get install python libcurl4-openssl-dev build-essential

If you don't want to use the libcurl version shipped with your system, since it's probably very old, you can install libcurl from source, for the addon to use that libcurl version you can use the variable mentioned above,curl_config_bin.

In case you want some examples check the CI configuration files (.travis.yml,.circleci/config.yml) and thescripts/ci/ folder.

On macOS you must have:

• macOS >= 13 (Sonoma)
• Xcode Command Line Tools

You can check if you have Xcode Command Line Tools be running:

xcode-select -p

It should return their path, in case it returns nothing, you must install it by running:

xcode-select --install

In case you have errors installing the addon from source, and you are using macOS version >= Mojave, check if the error you are receiving is the following one:

  CXX(target) Release/obj.target/node_libcurl/src/node_libcurl.o  clang: error: no such file or directory: '/usr/include'

If that is the case, it's because newer versions of the Command Line Tools does not add the/usr/include folder by default. CheckXcode 10 release notes for details.

The/usr/include is now available on$(xcrun --show-sdk-path)/usr/include. To correctly build libcurl you then need to pass that path to thenpm_config_curl_include_dirs environment variable:

npm_config_curl_include_dirs="$(xcrun --show-sdk-path)/usr/include" yarn add node-libcurl

If installing using a prebuilt binary you only need to have thevisual c++ 2017 runtime library.

If building from source, you must have:

• Python 3.x
• Visual Studio >= 2019 (with Clang/LLVM support enabled, see the next item)
• Clang/LLVM support on Visual Studio
• nasm

Python 3.x and the Visual Studio compiler can be installed by running:

npm install --global --production windows-build-tools

nasm can be obtained from their website, which is linked above, or using chocolatey:

choco install nasm

Currently there is no support to use other libcurl version than the one provided by thecurl-for-windows submodule (help is appreciated on adding this feature).

An important note about building the addon on Windows is that we have to do some "hacks" with the header files included bynode-gyp/nw-gyp. The reason for that is because as we are using a standalone version of OpenSSL, we don't want to use the OpenSSL headers provided by Node.js, which are by default added to<nw-gyp-or-node-gyp-folder>/include/node/openssl, so what we do is that before compilation that folder is renamed toopenssl.disabled. After a successful installation the folder is renamed back to their original name,however if any error happens during compilation the folder will stay renamed until the addon is compiled successfully. More info on why that was needed and some context can be found on issue#164.

NPM has its own internal version ofnode-gyp, which may not be the most up-to-date version. If you see an output like this:

[info] it worked if it ends with ok[info] using node-pre-gyp@2.0.0[info] using node@24.9.0 | win32 | x64 gyp info it worked if it ends with okgyp info using node-gyp@10.1.0gyp info using node@24.9.0 | win32 | x64gyp info ok gyp info it worked if it ends with okgyp info using node-gyp@10.1.0gyp info using node@24.9.0 | win32 | x64

Where the node-gyp version is10.1.0, you will probably face issues related to ClangCL like this:

C:\Users\internal\AppData\Local\node\corepack\v1\pnpm\9.9.0\dist\node_modules\node-gyp\src\win_delay_load_hook.cc(37,9): warning : unknown pragma ignored [-Wunknown-pragmas] [F:\jc\node-libcurl\build\deps\curl-for-windows\libcurl.vcxproj]  /LTCG:INCREMENTAL: no such file or directoryD:\Software\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\MSBuild\Microsoft\VC\v160\Microsoft.CppCommon.targets(1522,5): error MSB6006: "llvm-lib.exe" exited with code 1. [F:\jc\node-libcurl\build\deps\curl-for-windows\libcurl.vcxproj]C:\Users\internal\AppData\Local\node\corepack\v1\pnpm\9.9.0\dist\node_modules\node-gyp\src\win_delay_load_hook.cc(12,9): warning : unknown pragma ignored [-Wunknown-pragmas] [F:\jc\node-libcurl\build\deps\curl-for-windows\brotli\brotli.vcxproj]C:\Users\internal\AppData\Local\node\corepack\v1\pnpm\9.9.0\dist\node_modules\node-gyp\src\win_delay_load_hook.cc(37,9): warning : unknown pragma ignored [-Wunknown-pragmas] [F:\jc\node-libcurl\build\deps\curl-for-windows\brotli\brotli.vcxproj]  /LTCG:INCREMENTAL: no such file or directoryD:\Software\Microsoft Visual Studio\2019\Community\MSBuild\Microsoft\VC\v160\Microsoft.CppCommon.targets(1522,5): error MSB6006: "llvm-lib.exe" exited with code 1. [F:\jc\node-libcurl\build\deps\curl-for-windows\brotli\brotli.vcxproj]

The only solution to this is to install a globally available node-gyp version:

npm install--global node-gyp@latest

and then use it in the install command by setting thenpm_config_node_gyp environment variable (this assumes powershell):

$globalNodeGypPath=Join-Path (npm prefix-g)"node_modules\node-gyp\bin\node-gyp.js"$env:npm_config_node_gyp=$globalNodeGypPathpnpm install node-libcurl

If your question is directly related to the addon or their usage, you can get help the following ways:

• Post a question onstack-overflow and use thenode-libcurl tag.
• Join our Discord server and send your question there.

ReadCONTRIBUTING.md

Some people have been asking if there are any means to support my work, I've created a patreon page for that:https://www.patreon.com/jonathancardoso

If you want to donate via PayPal, use the same e-mail that is available on my GitHub profile:https://github.com/JCMais

And thanks for reading till here! 😄

Originally this addon was based on the work fromjiangmiao/node-curl, things have changed and most if not all code has been rewritten.