Send a POST Request to Another Server in Node.js

In this article, you will learn how to send a POST request to another server in Node.js.

Sending a POST request to another server

Sending a POST request to another server in Node.js involves making use of the built-in http or https module to send the request and receive a response. Here are the steps to do so:

Import the required modules

const https = require('https');
const querystring = require('querystring');

Create the data to be sent in the request

This can be done using the querystring module, which converts JavaScript objects into query strings.

const postData = querystring.stringify({
  'username': 'example_user',
  'password': 'example_password'
});

Define the options for the request

Define the options for the request, including the server URL, method, headers, and any other required options.

const options = {
  hostname: 'example.com',
  port: 443,
  path: '/login',
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {
    'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded',
    'Content-Length': postData.length
  }
};

Send the request using the https.request() method

const req = https.request(options, (res) => {
  console.log(`statusCode: ${res.statusCode}`);
  res.on('data', (d) => {
    process.stdout.write(d);
  });
});

Write the data to the request body and end the request

req.write(postData);
req.end();

Here’s the complete example:

const https = require('https');
const querystring = require('querystring');

const postData = querystring.stringify({
  'username': 'example_user',
  'password': 'example_password'
});

const options = {
  hostname: 'example.com',
  port: 443,
  path: '/login',
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {
    'Content-Type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded',
    'Content-Length': postData.length
  }
};

const req = https.request(options, (res) => {
  console.log(`statusCode: ${res.statusCode}`);
  res.on('data', (d) => {
    process.stdout.write(d);
  });
});

req.on('error', (error) => {
  console.error(error);
});

req.write(postData);
req.end();

This example sends a POST request to https://example.com/login with the username and password parameters in the request body. The response is logged to the console.