Where do you place NPM's request code?

Question

I want to use the request module in my express app, but I am not sure where the actual requests code goes.

Usage:

When a user loads a page, make a GET request and populate the page with data.
When a users clicks on a item from a table, make a GET request.
When a user fills out a form, POST.

I tried searching for answers but it seems to be implied that the developer knows where to place the code.

Example of a code snippet using request that I am unsure where to place in the express app:

var request = require('request');
request('http://www.google.com', function (error, response, body) {
  if (!error && response.statusCode == 200) {
    console.log(body) // Show the HTML for the Google homepage. 
  }
})

I am guessing that I should not place the code in the server.js file especially if I am going to be making many different calls, but that's what it looks like others are doing on StackOverflow.

Does the request belong in a model?

Are you doing it in response an http request from a user? If so, it could go in a request handler. — Robert Moskal, Aug 20 '16 at 18:55
When a user loads a page, I want to make a GET request. When a users clicks on a item from a table, I want to make a GET request. — anonameuser22, Aug 20 '16 at 18:57

Robert Moskal · Answer 1 · 2016-08-20T19:30:25.937

If you are doing this in response to a user interaction, like clicking on something you can just do it from the route handler. Below, I just return the results to the client, or I pass an error to the next handler in the chain.

var request = require('request');
var express = require('express');
var app = express();

app.get('/click', function(req, res, next){
    request('http://www.google.com', function (error, response, body) {
      if (error || response.statusCode != 200)
        return next(err);
      response.send(body) // return the html to the client
    })
});

app.listen(3000);

In bigger apps you might move routes into separate modules.

Where do you place NPM's request code?

1 Answers1