Sending a POST request to API with localhost

Question

I am sending an image to an API using my localhost address but for some reason it doesn't identify the image. It works fine if I use links on google. The code looks something like this:

unirest.post(requestString)
   .header("X-RapidAPI-Key", API_KEY)
   .field("urls", "http://localhost:4000/uploads/1570544614486-test.jpg")
   .field("album", ALBUM_NAME)
   .field("albumkey", ALBUM_KEY)
   .field("entryid", entryId)
   .end(result => {
       console.log(result.body);
});

I believe this will work once on a domain but I need it to work now for testing. How can I make this work using my localhost?

Do you habe any error in the browser Javascript console ? ( F12 ) you might have a cross-origin problem. — Nicolas, Oct 08 '19 at 16:57
How exactly do you expect a remote API to resolve a `localhost` URL? — esqew, Oct 08 '19 at 16:59
error: 'Empty result, possibly no faces detected in the image!'- that's the error I get — Roger, Oct 08 '19 at 16:59
If you image is hosted on your localhost server, and you are sending an url like ( http://localhost:3000/img/your_image.png) it won't work. localhost refer to your own computer, the API don't have access to that. — Nicolas, Oct 08 '19 at 17:06
@Roger It is possible, you'll have to change the structure of your request. See my answer. — esqew, Oct 08 '19 at 17:06

score 2 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 08 '19 at 17:06

You haven't exactly specified what API you're reaching out to, so your mileage may vary with different APIs.

However, based on your error message, I've determined you're trying to leverage the Lambda Face Recognition and Face Detection API via RapidAPI. This (linked) docs for this web service clearly show that the urls parameter you're attempting to use with your localhost URL above is actually meant to hold a comma-separated set of URLs to publicly-accessible image files. The remote API can't possibly resolve localhost in this context, because (a) it can't possibly have any idea what IP localhost should refer to, and (b) it's highly likely that your localhost here doesn't respond to HTTP requests from the broader Internet.

Instead, modify your request to use the files parameter (type binary) to upload the raw binary data for your image(s).

Thank you. Yes, that is what I did instead. I simply used regex to get the filename and used fs to link to the path. — Roger, Oct 08 '19 at 17:14

Sending a POST request to API with localhost

1 Answers1