Caxios.

General purpose HTTP request library with consistent behaviour.

Works in node.js and in the browser.

It is 100% Axios compatible, with some extra defaults and features.

Installation

npm install caxios

and then

const { getJSON, postJSON } = require('caxios');
 
// basic data fetching
getJSON('/api/data').then(res => console.log(res.data));
 
// posting JSON data (for ex.: a form) and handling server-side validation
postJSON('/api/data', { some: 'values', in: 'here' })
    .then(res => console.log(res.data))
    .catch(err => err.isValidation() 
        // catch stats code 422 (used for validation errors)
        ? console.log('Validation errors:', err.response.data)
        : console.log('Some other error', err)
    )

Defaults

Caxios uses the following defaults:

• request timeout = 3 seconds (by default Axios uses infinity)
• post, put and patch methods send Content-Type: application/json header (by default Axios sends Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded)
• all utility functions with with JSON suffix (getJSON, postJSON, putJSON, delJSON) send Accept: application/json header (by default Axios sends application/json, text/plain, */* for all requests)

Caxios does NOT modify the global axios instance.

Features

While Axios is an excellent library, its default behaviour may not be ideal. Caxios aims to address this by introducing the following features:

• easier and consistent error handling
• utility functions for making requests that accept only JSON responses
• support for HTTP status code 422 - Unprocessable Entity (used for validation errors)
• support for malformed JSON response handling

Rejected request error objects are extended with additional methods:

• isFormat() - true if the client expected JSON response, but server returned malformed JSON
• isCancel() - true if the request was cancelled by the client
• isNetwork() - true for any network error (timeout, server unavailable, CORS etc.)
• isValidation() - true if response status == 422 (used for validation errors)

These error types are mutually exclusive, so only one of those methods returns true for any error.

Examples

Send a request that accepts only application/json responses

const { getJSON } = require('caxios');
getJSON('/some/data') 
 
// Axios 
axios.get('/some/data', { headers: { 'Accept': 'application/json' } }) 

Easier cancel token passing

const { getJSON, makeCancelSource } = require('caxios');
const cancelSource = makeCancelSource();
cancelSource.cancel();
 
getJSON('/some/data',  { cancelSource })
    .catch(err => console.log(err.isCancel())); // true
 
// Axios 
axios.get('/some/data', { cancelToken: cancelSource.token })
    .catch(err => console.log(axios.isCancel(err))); // true

Easy error handling

getJSON('http://no-such-address.com')
    .catch(err => {
        console.log(err.isCancel());  // false
        console.log(err.isNetwork()); // true
    }); 
 
// Axios 
axios.get('http://no-such-address.com')
    .catch(err => {
        console.log(axios.isCancel(err));                   // false
        console.log(!axios.isCancel(err) && !err.response); // true
    }); 

Consistent JSON response format error handling

getJSON('/returns/non-json-response')
    .catch(err => {
        console.log(err.isFormat());  // true
        console.log(err.message);     // JSON parsing error message
    }); 
 
// Axios swallows JSON parsing errors, so you have to
// manually verify response format in the successful response handler

Special case for validation errors (422 HTTP status code)

getJSON('/this/returns/422')
     .catch(err => {
         console.log(err.response.status); // 422
         console.log(err.isValidation());  // true
         console.log(err.response.data);   // validation errors passed in response body
     });