Problem with HTTP client request and a server I have no control over...

[TooTallNate]

Hey guys, I'm attempting to perform a simple HTTP request against a
remote server that I have no control over whatsoever. I'm expecting
the request to return a 302 redirect to another URL, but instead Node
keeps on crashing on me when trying to parse the response:

events:12
throw arguments[1];
^
Error: Parse Error
at Client.ondata (http:881:22)
at IOWatcher.callback (net:517:29)
at node.js:773:9


Here's the code I'm trying. Almost a copy & paste of the google
example on the API page:
http://gist.github.com/531588

I am able to paste the URL into Chrome and it redirects to the
expected URL.

I am thinking that this is happening due to a sloppy response from the
server (I noticed that there's a bunch of spaces after a bunch of the
header values before the \r\n), and that possibly Node should be a bit
more lenient about this kind of response so that the coder can do
something with it.

Also, I know that the response it coming back ok because I can see it
and it's 302 status and it's redirected URL through Wireshark, but
Node it choking while parsing it seems. Thanks in advance!

[sdocherty]

wget http://gist.github.com/raw/531588/d90046ed7868c44e20329b66fbfc61a7ea9e7fb7/redir.js
node redir.js
STATUS: 302

seemed ok for me...
also added

console.log(JSON.stringify(response.headers));

in order to confirm your statement about sloppy response...which I'd
probably agree to...but it works for me...
node v0.0.102 compiled from source with openssl on Ubuntu 10.04 x86

[Ben Noordhuis]

Latest from GH, Ubuntu 10.04 on x86_64.

$ ../node redir.js

events:12
throw arguments[1];
^
Error: Parse Error

at Client.ondata (http:882:22)
at IOWatcher.callback (net:494:29)
at node.js:760:9

[TooTallNate]

Interesting, perhaps it's something that broke recently. I'm using
"v0.1.104" and it's crashing, but "v0.1.102" is apparently working for
sdocherty (I haven't tested this myself).

Anyways, I've started a GitHub Issue describing what's happening, so
hopefully it will get sorted out shortly!
<http://github.com/ry/node/issues/issue/242>