Get HTTPS response outside of the current function

[Tiago Hillebrandt]

Hey guys,

I need to do an HTTPS request to the Linode API.

That said, I am looking if would be possible to return an HTTPS response as value on this function: http://paste.ubuntu.com/9684987/

I tried some specific things to make the thread wait until request ends, like setTimeout() and while (!req.finished) {}, but nothing seems to work as expected.

This is my first Node.js implementation, so I am not sure if this would be the better way to perform this action.

Do you guys have any suggestions on this?

Thanks in advance!

[Ryan Graham]

The closest you could get to "returning the response" in this case is to return a Promise, but that's probably a whole other discussion (which I can't describe any better than Marc Harter did in http://strongloop.com/strongblog/promises-in-node-js-with-q-an-alternative-to-callbacks/ ).

Promises or not, however, you won't be able to get around the fact that the response will be asynchronous and your response handling code will be called "some time in the future".

~Ryan

[zladuric]

I assume you're trying to make a synchronous call from a node.js script, then when it finishes, do other things as well.

If your other scripts are also node.js, you would probably add a `callback` parameter to your _call method, and call it when done.

Example:

    function _call(cb) {

    

      request.get(someUrl, function(err, response) {

        // handle err if any 

        if(err) {return cb(err);}

    

        // do stuff with body, i.e. your JSON.parse

        // then call the callback

        cb(null, response.body);

      });

    });

    // then export the function

    module.exports.call = _call;

You would call this as follows, from other modules:

    var myModule = require('./linode-module.js');

    // when you call the module, pass it a function that will be executed when done. That is where you get the results.

    myModule.call(function(err, body) {

    

        // this function will receive your response.

        console.log(body);

        // now you can do other useful things with it.

    });

Hope that helps.

Zlatko