Node.js url methods return null

I'm trying to get node.js to print http request properties to the browser. However, the properties of the request url either return null or don't print at all. Here is the code for the server (server.js):

var http = require('http');
var url = require('url');
function start() {
 function onRequest(request, response) {
    var pathname = url.parse(request.url, true).pathname;
    var protocol = url.parse(request.url, true).protocol;
    var hostname = url.parse(request.url, true).host;
    var path = url.parse(request.url, true).path;
    response.writeHead(200, {"Content-Type": "text/plain"}); 
    response.write("Hello World"); //this is the text that is sent back
    response.write("\nThe HTTP response is " + response.statusCode);
    response.write("\nRequest for "+ pathname +" has been received. The request url is " + request.url + " and our protocol is " + protocol +".Also, our host is " + hostname);
    response.write("\nThe concatenated path is " + path);
    response.end(); //this is the end of the response
 }
 var new_server = http.createServer(onRequest).listen(8888);
} //end of start function
exports.start = start;

And the index file that executes this is index.js

var server = require("./server");
console.log("To see what the sever responds with, go to localhost:8888.");
server.start();

My browser output is, when I type in the url bar localhost:8888

Hello World The HTTP response is 200 Request for / has been received. The request url is / and our protocol is null.Also, our host is null The concatenated path is /

I need to get the url properties. Thank you.

The reason these variables are returning undefined is because the url only contains the path. The protocol and the host are stored elsewhere. Take this example from the node.js documentation:

var url = require('url');
console.log( url.parse(
    'http://user:pass@host.com:8080/p/a/t/h?query=string#hash', true
  ));

That will return the following object:

{
  href: 'http://user:pass@host.com:8080/p/a/t/h?query=string#hash',
  protocol: 'http:',
  host: 'user:pass@host.com:8080',
  auth: 'user:pass',
  hostname: 'host.com',
  port: '8080',
  pathname: '/p/a/t/h',
  search: '?query=string',
  query: { query: 'string' },
  hash: '#hash',
  slashes: true
}

These values are present in the URL, so they are present in the object. The localhost:8888 URL has none of these.

On another note, there are three important aspects to the request object: the url, the method, and the headers. If you try doing this, I suspect you will find the information you're looking for:

var urlStr = 'http://' + req.headers.host + req.url,
    parsedURL = url.parse( urlStr ,true );

console.log(parsedURL);
//this should give you the data you are looking for.