Getting binary content in node.js with http.request

Question

Getting binary content in node.js with http.request

I would like to retrieve binary data from an https request.

I found a similar question that uses the request method, Getting binary content in Node.js using request, is says setting encoding to null should work, but it doesn't.

options = {
hostname: urloptions.hostname,
path: urloptions.path,
method: 'GET',
rejectUnauthorized: false,
encoding: null
};

req = https.request(options, function(res) {
var data;
data = "";
res.on('data', function(chunk) {
    return data += chunk;
});
res.on('end', function() {
    return loadFile(data);
});
res.on('error', function(err) {
    console.log("Error during HTTP request");
    console.log(err.message);
});
})

Edit: setting encoding to 'binary' doesn't work either

node.js
http
binary

Answer 1

You need to set encoding to response, not request:

req = https.request(options, function(res) {
    res.setEncoding('binary'); // this

    var data = "";
    res.on('data', function(chunk) {
        return data += chunk;
    });
    res.on('end', function() {
        return loadFile(data);
    });
    res.on('error', function(err) {
        console.log("Error during HTTP request");
        console.log(err.message);
    });
});

Here is useful answer: node.js Writing image to local server

Answer 2

The accepted answer did not work for me (i.e., setting encoding to binary), even the user who asked the question mentioned it did not work.

Here's what worked for me, taken from: http://chad.pantherdev.com/node-js-binary-http-streams/

http.get(url.parse('http://myserver.com:9999/package'), function(res) {
    var data = [];

    res.on('data', function(chunk) {
        data.push(chunk);
    }).on('end', function() {
        //at this point data is an array of Buffers
        //so Buffer.concat() can make us a new Buffer
        //of all of them together
        var buffer = Buffer.concat(data);
        console.log(buffer.toString('base64'));
    });
});

Edit: Update answer following a suggestion by Semicolon