how can superagent and nock work together?

Question

In node.js, I have trouble making superagent and nock work together. If I use request instead of superagent, it works perfectly.

Here is a simple example where superagent fails to report the mocked data:

var agent = require('superagent');
var nock = require('nock');

nock('http://thefabric.com')
  .get('/testapi.html')
  .reply(200, {yes: 'it works !'});

agent
  .get('http://thefabric.com/testapi.html')
  .end(function(res){
    console.log(res.text);
  });

the res object has no 'text' property. Something went wrong.

Now if I do the same thing using request:

var request = require('request');
var nock = require('nock');

nock('http://thefabric.com')
  .get('/testapi.html')
  .reply(200, {yes: 'it works !'});

request('http://thefabric.com/testapi.html', function (error, response, body) {
  if (!error && response.statusCode == 200) {
    console.log(body)
  }
})

The mocked content is displayed correctly.

We used superagent in the tests so I'd rather stick with it. Does anyone know how to make it work ?

Thank's a lot, Xavier

Fiedling

Answer 1

My presumption is that Nock is responding with application/json as the mime type since you're responding with {yes: 'it works'}. Look at res.body in Superagent. If this doesn't work, let me know and I'll take a closer look.

Edit:

Try this:

var agent = require('superagent');
var nock = require('nock');

nock('http://localhost')
.get('/testapi.html')
.reply(200, {yes: 'it works !'}, {'Content-Type': 'application/json'}); //<-- notice the mime type?

agent
.get('http://localhost/testapi.html')
.end(function(res){
  console.log(res.text) //can use res.body if you wish
});

or...

var agent = require('superagent');
var nock = require('nock');

nock('http://localhost')
.get('/testapi.html')
.reply(200, {yes: 'it works !'});

agent
.get('http://localhost/testapi.html')
.buffer() //<--- notice the buffering call?
.end(function(res){
  console.log(res.text)
});

Either one works now. Here's what I believe is going on. nock is not setting a mime type, and the default is assumed. I assume the default is application/octet-stream. If that's the case, superagent then does not buffer the response to conserve memory. You must force it to buffer it. That's why if you specify a mime type, which your HTTP service should anyways, superagent knows what to do with application/json and why if you can use either res.text or res.body (parsed JSON).

Exophthalmos

Thank's for your answer! res.body is empty, the whole res object contains the default structure but the mocked content is not in there. I guess it's not a mime type problem. – Fiedling

OK, I'll try this out on my end and see what I come up with. – Exophthalmos