How to make remote REST call inside Node.js? any CURL?

I use node-fetch because it uses the familiar (if you are a web developer) fetch() API. fetch() is the new way to make arbitrary HTTP requests from the browser.

Yes I know this is a node js question, but don't we want to reduce the number of API's developers have to memorize and understand, and improve re-useability of our javascript code? Fetch is a standard so how about we converge on that?

The other nice thing about fetch() is that it returns a javascript Promise, so you can write async code like this:

let fetch = require('node-fetch');

fetch('http://localhost', {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: {'Content-Type': 'application/json'},
  body: '{}'
}).then(response => {
  return response.json();
}).catch(err => {console.log(err);});

Fetch superseeds XMLHTTPRequest. Here's some more info.

Look at http.request

var options = {
  host: url,
  port: 80,
  path: '/resource?id=foo&bar=baz',
  method: 'POST'
};

http.request(options, function(res) {
  console.log('STATUS: ' + res.statusCode);
  console.log('HEADERS: ' + JSON.stringify(res.headers));
  res.setEncoding('utf8');
  res.on('data', function (chunk) {
    console.log('BODY: ' + chunk);
  });
}).end();

Look at http://isolasoftware.it/2012/05/28/call-rest-api-with-node-js/

var https = require('https');

/**
 * HOW TO Make an HTTP Call - GET
 */
// options for GET
var optionsget = {
    host : 'graph.facebook.com', // here only the domain name
    // (no http/https !)
    port : 443,
    path : '/youscada', // the rest of the url with parameters if needed
    method : 'GET' // do GET
};

console.info('Options prepared:');
console.info(optionsget);
console.info('Do the GET call');

// do the GET request
var reqGet = https.request(optionsget, function(res) {
    console.log("statusCode: ", res.statusCode);
    // uncomment it for header details
    // console.log("headers: ", res.headers);

    res.on('data', function(d) {
        console.info('GET result:\n');
        process.stdout.write(d);
        console.info('\n\nCall completed');
    });

});

reqGet.end();
reqGet.on('error', function(e) {
    console.error(e);
});

/**
 * HOW TO Make an HTTP Call - POST
 */
// do a POST request
// create the JSON object
jsonObject = JSON.stringify({
    "message" : "The web of things is approaching, let do some tests to be ready!",
    "name" : "Test message posted with node.js",
    "caption" : "Some tests with node.js",
    "link" : "http://www.youscada.com",
    "description" : "this is a description",
    "picture" : "http://youscada.com/wp-content/uploads/2012/05/logo2.png",
    "actions" : [ {
        "name" : "youSCADA",
        "link" : "http://www.youscada.com"
    } ]
});

// prepare the header
var postheaders = {
    'Content-Type' : 'application/json',
    'Content-Length' : Buffer.byteLength(jsonObject, 'utf8')
};

// the post options
var optionspost = {
    host : 'graph.facebook.com',
    port : 443,
    path : '/youscada/feed?access_token=your_api_key',
    method : 'POST',
    headers : postheaders
};

console.info('Options prepared:');
console.info(optionspost);
console.info('Do the POST call');

// do the POST call
var reqPost = https.request(optionspost, function(res) {
    console.log("statusCode: ", res.statusCode);
    // uncomment it for header details
//  console.log("headers: ", res.headers);

    res.on('data', function(d) {
        console.info('POST result:\n');
        process.stdout.write(d);
        console.info('\n\nPOST completed');
    });
});

// write the json data
reqPost.write(jsonObject);
reqPost.end();
reqPost.on('error', function(e) {
    console.error(e);
});

/**
 * Get Message - GET
 */
// options for GET
var optionsgetmsg = {
    host : 'graph.facebook.com', // here only the domain name
    // (no http/https !)
    port : 443,
    path : '/youscada/feed?access_token=you_api_key', // the rest of the url with parameters if needed
    method : 'GET' // do GET
};

console.info('Options prepared:');
console.info(optionsgetmsg);
console.info('Do the GET call');

// do the GET request
var reqGet = https.request(optionsgetmsg, function(res) {
    console.log("statusCode: ", res.statusCode);
    // uncomment it for header details
//  console.log("headers: ", res.headers);


    res.on('data', function(d) {
        console.info('GET result after POST:\n');
        process.stdout.write(d);
        console.info('\n\nCall completed');
    });

});

reqGet.end();
reqGet.on('error', function(e) {
    console.error(e);
});

How about using Request — Simplified HTTP client.

Edit February 2020: Request has been deprecated so you probably shouldn't use it any more.

Here's a GET:

var request = require('request');
request('http://www.google.com', function (error, response, body) {
    if (!error && response.statusCode === 200) {
        console.log(body) // Print the google web page.
     }
})

OP also wanted a POST:

request.post('http://service.com/upload', {form:{key:'value'}})