Echo-server-with-api NPM

echo-server-with-api

a simple http echo server that can be started and stopped programmatically through an API to help testing http clients

all http requests are answered with a 200 OK status code, and a JSON representation of the request data as the body of the request (echo)
add ?status=xxx to the request url to have the server respond with xxx as the http-status-code (you still get the echo as the response body)
add ?timeout to tell the server to time-out your request (useful for testing how your http client handles server timeouts)
unlike node's built-in http server, this echo server also closes all active connections (Keep-Alive) when calling .stop(), so the server really stops - instead of just "stops accepting new connections while keeping active connections alive"
meant as an easy-to-use test server for http clients, with Mocha in mind (start \ stop the server from within mocha)
supports query-string, cookies, form \ JSON payload, and more
also provides a synchronous start \ stop API

Install

npm install echo-server

Usage

const echoServer = require('echo-server');

// before your tests
echoServer.start(() => {
    console.log('serving echo @ ' + echoServer.location);
});

//
// test your http client by sending requests
// to the echo-server and running assertions on
// the resulting "echo" to make sure your client
// sends the expected HTTP requests, and properly
// handles the various response codes, timeouts, and payloads
//


// after your tests you can gracefully close the server
echoServer.stop((err) => {
    if (err) {
        console.log('boo..'); // this should never happen
    }

    console.log('echo server stopped');
});

Example of an Echo-Response

POST http://localhost:54606/foo/bar?my=query PAYLOAD qwe=asd

{
    clientIP: '127.0.0.1',
    url     : '/foo/bar',
    method  : 'post',
    protocol: 'http',

    query   : {
        my: 'query'
    },

    cookies : {},

    headers : {
        'content-type'  : 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded',
        'content-length': '7',
        host            : 'localhost:54606',
        connection      : 'close'
    },

    body: {
        qwe: 'asd' }
    }

API

start([callback])

starts the echo server. if a callback is used it will run once the server is up and running (listening for incoming requests)

startSync()

starts the echo server synchronously. this is just a convenience method if you need a sync API instead of using async patterns (callbacks \ promises \ other)

stop([callback])

stops the echo server. if a callback is used it will run once the server has fully stopped (all active connections were destroyed and new connections cannot be made)

stopSync()

like stop(), just synchronously

location

the url where the server can be reached. normally this is something like http://localhost:1234. when the server is not running, this is an empty string

isListening

a boolean. true when the server is running. false otherwise