How to set a timeout on a http.request() in Node?

[Claudio Cicali]

Sorry, this is a xpost iwth Stackoverflow, but I still have not found an answet to this (apparently) simple question:

I'm trying to set a timeout on an HTTP client that uses http.request with no luck. So far what I did is this:

    var options = { ... }
    var req = http.request(options, function(res) {
      // Usual stuff: on(data), on(end), chunks, etc...
    }

    /* This does not work TOO MUCH... sometimes the socket is not ready (undefined) expecially on rapid sequences of requests */
    req.socket.setTimeout(myTimeout); 
    req.socket.on('timeout', function() {
      req.abort();
    });

    req.write('something');
    req.end();

Btw, this tecnique works fine: http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6129240/how-to-set-timeout-for-http-createclient-in-node-js

If I use the socket timeout, and I issue two requests one after another (without waiting the first to finish), the second request has the socket undefined (at least at the moment I try to set the timeout).. maybe there should be something like on("ready") on the socket...

Any hints?

[mscdex]

On Jun 2, 1:21 pm, Claudio Cicali <claudio.cic...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Sorry, this is a xpost iwth Stackoverflow, but I still have not found an
> answet to this (apparently) simple question:
>
> I'm trying to set a timeout on an HTTP client that uses http.request with no
> luck. So far what I did is this:

AFAIK, you can't set a timeout with the current (0.4) API because of
the way http(s) Agents are currently implemented. IIRC the request
should eventually timeout after 2 minutes and an 'error' event will be
emitted on the request object.

[Claudio Cicali]

Yes, indeed... 2 minutes is the current timeout. So if we need a smaller timeout we can use the "applicative" approach as in http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6129240/how-to-set-timeout-for-http-createclient-in-node-js

[mscdex]

On Jun 2, 2:51 pm, Claudio Cicali <claudio.cic...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Yes, indeed... 2 minutes is the current timeout. So if we need a smaller

> timeout we can use the "applicative" approach as inhttp://stackoverflow.com/questions/6129240/how-to-set-timeout-for-htt...

Well, that's more like using the deprecated http API :)

[Claudio Cicali]

Yeah, maybe, but as for now this seems the only working approach. If you try to set the timeout on the socket, you'll get an undefined socket on the next *immediate* call to a request creation.