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class

http.ClientRequest

class ClientRequest

This object is created internally and returned from request. It represents an in-progress request whose header has already been queued. The header is still mutable using the setHeader(name, value), getHeader(name), removeHeader(name) API. The actual header will be sent along with the first data chunk or when calling request.end().

To get the response, add a listener for 'response' to the request object. 'response' will be emitted from the request object when the response headers have been received. The 'response' event is executed with one argument which is an instance of IncomingMessage.

During the 'response' event, one can add listeners to the response object; particularly to listen for the 'data' event.

If no 'response' handler is added, then the response will be entirely discarded. However, if a 'response' event handler is added, then the data from the response object must be consumed, either by calling response.read() whenever there is a 'readable' event, or by adding a 'data' handler, or by calling the .resume() method. Until the data is consumed, the 'end' event will not fire. Also, until the data is read it will consume memory that can eventually lead to a 'process out of memory' error.

For backward compatibility, res will only emit 'error' if there is an 'error' listener registered.

Set Content-Length header to limit the response body size. If response.strictContentLength is set to true, mismatching the Content-Length header value will result in an Error being thrown, identified by code:``'ERR_HTTP_CONTENT_LENGTH_MISMATCH'.

Content-Length value should be in bytes, not characters. Use Buffer.byteLength() to determine the length of the body in bytes.

  • readonly closed: boolean

    Is true after 'close' has been emitted.

  • destroyed: boolean

    Is true after writable.destroy() has been called.

  • readonly errored: null | Error

    Returns error if the stream has been destroyed with an error.

  • readonly headersSent: boolean

    Read-only. true if the headers were sent, otherwise false.

  • host: string

    The request host.

  • maxHeadersCount: number

    Limits maximum response headers count. If set to 0, no limit will be applied.

  • method: string

    The request method.

  • path: string

    The request path.

  • protocol: string

    The request protocol.

  • reusedSocket: boolean

    When sending request through a keep-alive enabled agent, the underlying socket might be reused. But if server closes connection at unfortunate time, client may run into a 'ECONNRESET' error.

    import http from 'node:http';

// Server has a 5 seconds keep-alive timeout by default
http
  .createServer((req, res) => {
    res.write('hello\n');
    res.end();
  })
  .listen(3000);

setInterval(() => {
  // Adapting a keep-alive agent
  http.get('http://localhost:3000', { agent }, (res) => {
    res.on('data', (data) => {
      // Do nothing
    });
  });
}, 5000); // Sending request on 5s interval so it's easy to hit idle timeout

    By marking a request whether it reused socket or not, we can do automatic error retry base on it.

    import http from 'node:http';
const agent = new http.Agent({ keepAlive: true });

function retriableRequest() {
  const req = http
    .get('http://localhost:3000', { agent }, (res) => {
      // ...
    })
    .on('error', (err) => {
      // Check if retry is needed
      if (req.reusedSocket && err.code === 'ECONNRESET') {
        retriableRequest();
      }
    });
}

retriableRequest();
  • sendDate: boolean
  • readonly socket: null | Socket

    Reference to the underlying socket. Usually, users will not want to access this property.

    After calling outgoingMessage.end(), this property will be nulled.

  • readonly writable: boolean

    Is true if it is safe to call writable.write(), which means the stream has not been destroyed, errored, or ended.

  • readonly writableCorked: number

    Number of times writable.uncork() needs to be called in order to fully uncork the stream.

  • readonly writableEnded: boolean

    Is true after writable.end() has been called. This property does not indicate whether the data has been flushed, for this use writable.writableFinished instead.

  • readonly writableFinished: boolean

    Is set to true immediately before the 'finish' event is emitted.

  • readonly writableHighWaterMark: number

    Return the value of highWaterMark passed when creating this Writable.

  • readonly writableLength: number

    This property contains the number of bytes (or objects) in the queue ready to be written. The value provides introspection data regarding the status of the highWaterMark.

  • readonly writableNeedDrain: boolean

    Is true if the stream's buffer has been full and stream will emit 'drain'.

  • readonly writableObjectMode: boolean

    Getter for the property objectMode of a given Writable stream.

  • static captureRejections: boolean

    Value: boolean

    Change the default captureRejections option on all new EventEmitter objects.

  • readonly static captureRejectionSymbol: typeof captureRejectionSymbol

    Value: Symbol.for('nodejs.rejection')

    See how to write a custom rejection handler.

  • static defaultMaxListeners: number

    By default, a maximum of 10 listeners can be registered for any single event. This limit can be changed for individual EventEmitter instances using the emitter.setMaxListeners(n) method. To change the default for allEventEmitter instances, the events.defaultMaxListeners property can be used. If this value is not a positive number, a RangeError is thrown.

    Take caution when setting the events.defaultMaxListeners because the change affects all EventEmitter instances, including those created before the change is made. However, calling emitter.setMaxListeners(n) still has precedence over events.defaultMaxListeners.

    This is not a hard limit. The EventEmitter instance will allow more listeners to be added but will output a trace warning to stderr indicating that a "possible EventEmitter memory leak" has been detected. For any single EventEmitter, the emitter.getMaxListeners() and emitter.setMaxListeners() methods can be used to temporarily avoid this warning:

    import { EventEmitter } from 'node:events';
const emitter = new EventEmitter();
emitter.setMaxListeners(emitter.getMaxListeners() + 1);
emitter.once('event', () => {
  // do stuff
  emitter.setMaxListeners(Math.max(emitter.getMaxListeners() - 1, 0));
});

    The --trace-warnings command-line flag can be used to display the stack trace for such warnings.

    The emitted warning can be inspected with process.on('warning') and will have the additional emitter, type, and count properties, referring to the event emitter instance, the event's name and the number of attached listeners, respectively. Its name property is set to 'MaxListenersExceededWarning'.

  • readonly static errorMonitor: typeof errorMonitor

    This symbol shall be used to install a listener for only monitoring 'error' events. Listeners installed using this symbol are called before the regular 'error' listeners are called.

    Installing a listener using this symbol does not change the behavior once an 'error' event is emitted. Therefore, the process will still crash if no regular 'error' listener is installed.

  • callback: (error?: null | Error) => void
    ): void;
  • error: null | Error,
    callback: (error?: null | Error) => void
    ): void;
  • callback: (error?: null | Error) => void
    ): void;
  • chunk: any,
    encoding: BufferEncoding,
    callback: (error?: null | Error) => void
    ): void;
  • chunks: { chunk: any; encoding: BufferEncoding }[],
    callback: (error?: null | Error) => void
    ): void;
  • error: Error,
    event: string | symbol,
    ...args: AnyRest
    ): void;
  • headers: OutgoingHttpHeaders | readonly [string, string][]
    ): void;

    Adds HTTP trailers (headers but at the end of the message) to the message.

    Trailers will only be emitted if the message is chunked encoded. If not, the trailers will be silently discarded.

    HTTP requires the Trailer header to be sent to emit trailers, with a list of header field names in its value, e.g.

    message.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Type': 'text/plain',
                         'Trailer': 'Content-MD5' });
message.write(fileData);
message.addTrailers({ 'Content-MD5': '7895bf4b8828b55ceaf47747b4bca667' });
message.end();

    Attempting to set a header field name or value that contains invalid characters will result in a TypeError being thrown.

  • name: string,
    value: string | readonly string[]
    ): this;

    Append a single header value to the header object.

    If the value is an array, this is equivalent to calling this method multiple times.

    If there were no previous values for the header, this is equivalent to calling outgoingMessage.setHeader(name, value).

    Depending of the value of options.uniqueHeaders when the client request or the server were created, this will end up in the header being sent multiple times or a single time with values joined using ; .

    @param name

    Header name

    @param value

    Header value

  • compose<T extends ReadableStream>(
    stream: ComposeFnParam | T | Iterable<T, any, any> | AsyncIterable<T, any, any>,
    options?: { signal: AbortSignal }
    ): T;
  • cork(): void;

    The writable.cork() method forces all written data to be buffered in memory. The buffered data will be flushed when either the uncork or end methods are called.

    The primary intent of writable.cork() is to accommodate a situation in which several small chunks are written to the stream in rapid succession. Instead of immediately forwarding them to the underlying destination, writable.cork() buffers all the chunks until writable.uncork() is called, which will pass them all to writable._writev(), if present. This prevents a head-of-line blocking situation where data is being buffered while waiting for the first small chunk to be processed. However, use of writable.cork() without implementing writable._writev() may have an adverse effect on throughput.

    See also: writable.uncork(), writable._writev().

  • error?: Error
    ): this;

    Destroy the stream. Optionally emit an 'error' event, and emit a 'close' event (unless emitClose is set to false). After this call, the writable stream has ended and subsequent calls to write() or end() will result in an ERR_STREAM_DESTROYED error. This is a destructive and immediate way to destroy a stream. Previous calls to write() may not have drained, and may trigger an ERR_STREAM_DESTROYED error. Use end() instead of destroy if data should flush before close, or wait for the 'drain' event before destroying the stream.

    Once destroy() has been called any further calls will be a no-op and no further errors except from _destroy() may be emitted as 'error'.

    Implementors should not override this method, but instead implement writable._destroy().

    @param error

    Optional, an error to emit with 'error' event.

  • event: 'close'
    ): boolean;

    Synchronously calls each of the listeners registered for the event named eventName, in the order they were registered, passing the supplied arguments to each.

    Returns true if the event had listeners, false otherwise.

    import { EventEmitter } from 'node:events';
const myEmitter = new EventEmitter();

// First listener
myEmitter.on('event', function firstListener() {
  console.log('Helloooo! first listener');
});
// Second listener
myEmitter.on('event', function secondListener(arg1, arg2) {
  console.log(`event with parameters ${arg1}, ${arg2} in second listener`);
});
// Third listener
myEmitter.on('event', function thirdListener(...args) {
  const parameters = args.join(', ');
  console.log(`event with parameters ${parameters} in third listener`);
});

console.log(myEmitter.listeners('event'));

myEmitter.emit('event', 1, 2, 3, 4, 5);

// Prints:
// [
//   [Function: firstListener],
//   [Function: secondListener],
//   [Function: thirdListener]
// ]
// Helloooo! first listener
// event with parameters 1, 2 in second listener
// event with parameters 1, 2, 3, 4, 5 in third listener
    event: 'drain'
    ): boolean;
    event: 'error',
    err: Error
    ): boolean;
    event: 'finish'
    ): boolean;
    event: 'pipe',
    src: Readable
    ): boolean;
    event: 'unpipe',
    src: Readable
    ): boolean;
    event: string | symbol,
    ...args: any[]
    ): boolean;
  • cb?: () => void
    ): this;

    Calling the writable.end() method signals that no more data will be written to the Writable. The optional chunk and encoding arguments allow one final additional chunk of data to be written immediately before closing the stream.

    Calling the write method after calling end will raise an error.

    // Write 'hello, ' and then end with 'world!'.
import fs from 'node:fs';
const file = fs.createWriteStream('example.txt');
file.write('hello, ');
file.end('world!');
// Writing more now is not allowed!
    chunk: any,
    cb?: () => void
    ): this;

    Calling the writable.end() method signals that no more data will be written to the Writable. The optional chunk and encoding arguments allow one final additional chunk of data to be written immediately before closing the stream.

    Calling the write method after calling end will raise an error.

    // Write 'hello, ' and then end with 'world!'.
import fs from 'node:fs';
const file = fs.createWriteStream('example.txt');
file.write('hello, ');
file.end('world!');
// Writing more now is not allowed!
    @param chunk

    Optional data to write. For streams not operating in object mode, chunk must be a {string}, {Buffer}, {TypedArray} or {DataView}. For object mode streams, chunk may be any JavaScript value other than null.

    chunk: any,
    encoding: BufferEncoding,
    cb?: () => void
    ): this;

    Calling the writable.end() method signals that no more data will be written to the Writable. The optional chunk and encoding arguments allow one final additional chunk of data to be written immediately before closing the stream.

    Calling the write method after calling end will raise an error.

    // Write 'hello, ' and then end with 'world!'.
import fs from 'node:fs';
const file = fs.createWriteStream('example.txt');
file.write('hello, ');
file.end('world!');
// Writing more now is not allowed!
    @param chunk

    Optional data to write. For streams not operating in object mode, chunk must be a {string}, {Buffer}, {TypedArray} or {DataView}. For object mode streams, chunk may be any JavaScript value other than null.

    @param encoding

    The encoding if chunk is a string

  • eventNames(): string | symbol[];

    Returns an array listing the events for which the emitter has registered listeners. The values in the array are strings or Symbols.

    import { EventEmitter } from 'node:events';

const myEE = new EventEmitter();
myEE.on('foo', () => {});
myEE.on('bar', () => {});

const sym = Symbol('symbol');
myEE.on(sym, () => {});

console.log(myEE.eventNames());
// Prints: [ 'foo', 'bar', Symbol(symbol) ]
  • flushHeaders(): void;

    Flushes the message headers.

    For efficiency reason, Node.js normally buffers the message headers until outgoingMessage.end() is called or the first chunk of message data is written. It then tries to pack the headers and data into a single TCP packet.

    It is usually desired (it saves a TCP round-trip), but not when the first data is not sent until possibly much later. outgoingMessage.flushHeaders() bypasses the optimization and kickstarts the message.

  • name: string
    ): undefined | string | number | string[];

    Gets the value of the HTTP header with the given name. If that header is not set, the returned value will be undefined.

    @param name

    Name of header

  • getHeaderNames(): string[];

    Returns an array containing the unique names of the current outgoing headers. All names are lowercase.

  • Returns a shallow copy of the current outgoing headers. Since a shallow copy is used, array values may be mutated without additional calls to various header-related HTTP module methods. The keys of the returned object are the header names and the values are the respective header values. All header names are lowercase.

    The object returned by the outgoingMessage.getHeaders() method does not prototypically inherit from the JavaScript Object. This means that typical Object methods such as obj.toString(), obj.hasOwnProperty(), and others are not defined and will not work.

    outgoingMessage.setHeader('Foo', 'bar');
outgoingMessage.setHeader('Set-Cookie', ['foo=bar', 'bar=baz']);

const headers = outgoingMessage.getHeaders();
// headers === { foo: 'bar', 'set-cookie': ['foo=bar', 'bar=baz'] }
  • getMaxListeners(): number;

    Returns the current max listener value for the EventEmitter which is either set by emitter.setMaxListeners(n) or defaults to EventEmitter.defaultMaxListeners.

  • getRawHeaderNames(): string[];

    Returns an array containing the unique names of the current outgoing raw headers. Header names are returned with their exact casing being set.

    request.setHeader('Foo', 'bar');
request.setHeader('Set-Cookie', ['foo=bar', 'bar=baz']);

const headerNames = request.getRawHeaderNames();
// headerNames === ['Foo', 'Set-Cookie']
  • name: string
    ): boolean;

    Returns true if the header identified by name is currently set in the outgoing headers. The header name is case-insensitive.

    const hasContentType = outgoingMessage.hasHeader('content-type');
  • eventName: string | symbol,
    listener?: Function
    ): number;

    Returns the number of listeners listening for the event named eventName. If listener is provided, it will return how many times the listener is found in the list of the listeners of the event.

    @param eventName

    The name of the event being listened for

    @param listener

    The event handler function

  • eventName: string | symbol
    ): Function[];

    Returns a copy of the array of listeners for the event named eventName.

    server.on('connection', (stream) => {
  console.log('someone connected!');
});
console.log(util.inspect(server.listeners('connection')));
// Prints: [ [Function] ]
  • off<K>(
    eventName: string | symbol,
    listener: (...args: any[]) => void
    ): this;

    Alias for emitter.removeListener().

  • socket: Socket
    ): void;
  • pipe<T extends WritableStream>(
    destination: T,
    options?: { end: boolean }
    ): T;
  • eventName: string | symbol
    ): Function[];

    Returns a copy of the array of listeners for the event named eventName, including any wrappers (such as those created by .once()).

    import { EventEmitter } from 'node:events';
const emitter = new EventEmitter();
emitter.once('log', () => console.log('log once'));

// Returns a new Array with a function `onceWrapper` which has a property
// `listener` which contains the original listener bound above
const listeners = emitter.rawListeners('log');
const logFnWrapper = listeners[0];

// Logs "log once" to the console and does not unbind the `once` event
logFnWrapper.listener();

// Logs "log once" to the console and removes the listener
logFnWrapper();

emitter.on('log', () => console.log('log persistently'));
// Will return a new Array with a single function bound by `.on()` above
const newListeners = emitter.rawListeners('log');

// Logs "log persistently" twice
newListeners[0]();
emitter.emit('log');
  • eventName?: string | symbol
    ): this;

    Removes all listeners, or those of the specified eventName.

    It is bad practice to remove listeners added elsewhere in the code, particularly when the EventEmitter instance was created by some other component or module (e.g. sockets or file streams).

    Returns a reference to the EventEmitter, so that calls can be chained.

  • name: string
    ): void;

    Removes a header that is queued for implicit sending.

    outgoingMessage.removeHeader('Content-Encoding');
    @param name

    Header name

  • event: 'close',
    listener: () => void
    ): this;

    Removes the specified listener from the listener array for the event named eventName.

    const callback = (stream) => {
  console.log('someone connected!');
};
server.on('connection', callback);
// ...
server.removeListener('connection', callback);

    removeListener() will remove, at most, one instance of a listener from the listener array. If any single listener has been added multiple times to the listener array for the specified eventName, then removeListener() must be called multiple times to remove each instance.

    Once an event is emitted, all listeners attached to it at the time of emitting are called in order. This implies that any removeListener() or removeAllListeners() calls after emitting and before the last listener finishes execution will not remove them fromemit() in progress. Subsequent events behave as expected.

    import { EventEmitter } from 'node:events';
class MyEmitter extends EventEmitter {}
const myEmitter = new MyEmitter();

const callbackA = () => {
  console.log('A');
  myEmitter.removeListener('event', callbackB);
};

const callbackB = () => {
  console.log('B');
};

myEmitter.on('event', callbackA);

myEmitter.on('event', callbackB);

// callbackA removes listener callbackB but it will still be called.
// Internal listener array at time of emit [callbackA, callbackB]
myEmitter.emit('event');
// Prints:
//   A
//   B

// callbackB is now removed.
// Internal listener array [callbackA]
myEmitter.emit('event');
// Prints:
//   A

    Because listeners are managed using an internal array, calling this will change the position indices of any listener registered after the listener being removed. This will not impact the order in which listeners are called, but it means that any copies of the listener array as returned by the emitter.listeners() method will need to be recreated.

    When a single function has been added as a handler multiple times for a single event (as in the example below), removeListener() will remove the most recently added instance. In the example the once('ping') listener is removed:

    import { EventEmitter } from 'node:events';
const ee = new EventEmitter();

function pong() {
  console.log('pong');
}

ee.on('ping', pong);
ee.once('ping', pong);
ee.removeListener('ping', pong);

ee.emit('ping');
ee.emit('ping');

    Returns a reference to the EventEmitter, so that calls can be chained.

    event: 'drain',
    listener: () => void
    ): this;
    event: 'error',
    listener: (err: Error) => void
    ): this;
    event: 'finish',
    listener: () => void
    ): this;
    event: 'pipe',
    listener: (src: Readable) => void
    ): this;
    event: 'unpipe',
    listener: (src: Readable) => void
    ): this;
    event: string | symbol,
    listener: (...args: any[]) => void
    ): this;
  • encoding: BufferEncoding
    ): this;

    The writable.setDefaultEncoding() method sets the default encoding for a Writable stream.

    @param encoding

    The new default encoding

  • name: string,
    value: string | number | readonly string[]
    ): this;

    Sets a single header value. If the header already exists in the to-be-sent headers, its value will be replaced. Use an array of strings to send multiple headers with the same name.

    @param name

    Header name

    @param value

    Header value

  • headers: Headers | Map<string, string | number | readonly string[]>
    ): this;

    Sets multiple header values for implicit headers. headers must be an instance of Headers or Map, if a header already exists in the to-be-sent headers, its value will be replaced.

    const headers = new Headers({ foo: 'bar' });
outgoingMessage.setHeaders(headers);

    or

    const headers = new Map([['foo', 'bar']]);
outgoingMessage.setHeaders(headers);

    When headers have been set with outgoingMessage.setHeaders(), they will be merged with any headers passed to response.writeHead(), with the headers passed to response.writeHead() given precedence.

    // Returns content-type = text/plain
const server = http.createServer((req, res) => {
  const headers = new Headers({ 'Content-Type': 'text/html' });
  res.setHeaders(headers);
  res.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Type': 'text/plain' });
  res.end('ok');
});
  • n: number
    ): this;

    By default EventEmitters will print a warning if more than 10 listeners are added for a particular event. This is a useful default that helps finding memory leaks. The emitter.setMaxListeners() method allows the limit to be modified for this specific EventEmitter instance. The value can be set to Infinity (or 0) to indicate an unlimited number of listeners.

    Returns a reference to the EventEmitter, so that calls can be chained.

  • noDelay?: boolean
    ): void;

    Once a socket is assigned to this request and is connected socket.setNoDelay() will be called.

  • enable?: boolean,
    initialDelay?: number
    ): void;

    Once a socket is assigned to this request and is connected socket.setKeepAlive() will be called.

  • timeout: number,
    callback?: () => void
    ): this;

    Once a socket is assigned to this request and is connected socket.setTimeout() will be called.

    @param timeout

    Milliseconds before a request times out.

    @param callback

    Optional function to be called when a timeout occurs. Same as binding to the 'timeout' event.

  • uncork(): void;

    The writable.uncork() method flushes all data buffered since cork was called.

    When using writable.cork() and writable.uncork() to manage the buffering of writes to a stream, defer calls to writable.uncork() using process.nextTick(). Doing so allows batching of all writable.write() calls that occur within a given Node.js event loop phase.

    stream.cork();
stream.write('some ');
stream.write('data ');
process.nextTick(() => stream.uncork());

    If the writable.cork() method is called multiple times on a stream, the same number of calls to writable.uncork() must be called to flush the buffered data.

    stream.cork();
stream.write('some ');
stream.cork();
stream.write('data ');
process.nextTick(() => {
  stream.uncork();
  // The data will not be flushed until uncork() is called a second time.
  stream.uncork();
});

    See also: writable.cork().

  • chunk: any,
    callback?: (error: undefined | null | Error) => void
    ): boolean;

    The writable.write() method writes some data to the stream, and calls the supplied callback once the data has been fully handled. If an error occurs, the callback will be called with the error as its first argument. The callback is called asynchronously and before 'error' is emitted.

    The return value is true if the internal buffer is less than the highWaterMark configured when the stream was created after admitting chunk. If false is returned, further attempts to write data to the stream should stop until the 'drain' event is emitted.

    While a stream is not draining, calls to write() will buffer chunk, and return false. Once all currently buffered chunks are drained (accepted for delivery by the operating system), the 'drain' event will be emitted. Once write() returns false, do not write more chunks until the 'drain' event is emitted. While calling write() on a stream that is not draining is allowed, Node.js will buffer all written chunks until maximum memory usage occurs, at which point it will abort unconditionally. Even before it aborts, high memory usage will cause poor garbage collector performance and high RSS (which is not typically released back to the system, even after the memory is no longer required). Since TCP sockets may never drain if the remote peer does not read the data, writing a socket that is not draining may lead to a remotely exploitable vulnerability.

    Writing data while the stream is not draining is particularly problematic for a Transform, because the Transform streams are paused by default until they are piped or a 'data' or 'readable' event handler is added.

    If the data to be written can be generated or fetched on demand, it is recommended to encapsulate the logic into a Readable and use pipe. However, if calling write() is preferred, it is possible to respect backpressure and avoid memory issues using the 'drain' event:

    function write(data, cb) {
  if (!stream.write(data)) {
    stream.once('drain', cb);
  } else {
    process.nextTick(cb);
  }
}

// Wait for cb to be called before doing any other write.
write('hello', () => {
  console.log('Write completed, do more writes now.');
});

    A Writable stream in object mode will always ignore the encoding argument.

    @param chunk

    Optional data to write. For streams not operating in object mode, chunk must be a {string}, {Buffer}, {TypedArray} or {DataView}. For object mode streams, chunk may be any JavaScript value other than null.

    @param callback

    Callback for when this chunk of data is flushed.

    @returns

    false if the stream wishes for the calling code to wait for the 'drain' event to be emitted before continuing to write additional data; otherwise true.

    chunk: any,
    encoding: BufferEncoding,
    callback?: (error: undefined | null | Error) => void
    ): boolean;

    The writable.write() method writes some data to the stream, and calls the supplied callback once the data has been fully handled. If an error occurs, the callback will be called with the error as its first argument. The callback is called asynchronously and before 'error' is emitted.

    The return value is true if the internal buffer is less than the highWaterMark configured when the stream was created after admitting chunk. If false is returned, further attempts to write data to the stream should stop until the 'drain' event is emitted.

    While a stream is not draining, calls to write() will buffer chunk, and return false. Once all currently buffered chunks are drained (accepted for delivery by the operating system), the 'drain' event will be emitted. Once write() returns false, do not write more chunks until the 'drain' event is emitted. While calling write() on a stream that is not draining is allowed, Node.js will buffer all written chunks until maximum memory usage occurs, at which point it will abort unconditionally. Even before it aborts, high memory usage will cause poor garbage collector performance and high RSS (which is not typically released back to the system, even after the memory is no longer required). Since TCP sockets may never drain if the remote peer does not read the data, writing a socket that is not draining may lead to a remotely exploitable vulnerability.

    Writing data while the stream is not draining is particularly problematic for a Transform, because the Transform streams are paused by default until they are piped or a 'data' or 'readable' event handler is added.

    If the data to be written can be generated or fetched on demand, it is recommended to encapsulate the logic into a Readable and use pipe. However, if calling write() is preferred, it is possible to respect backpressure and avoid memory issues using the 'drain' event:

    function write(data, cb) {
  if (!stream.write(data)) {
    stream.once('drain', cb);
  } else {
    process.nextTick(cb);
  }
}

// Wait for cb to be called before doing any other write.
write('hello', () => {
  console.log('Write completed, do more writes now.');
});

    A Writable stream in object mode will always ignore the encoding argument.

    @param chunk

    Optional data to write. For streams not operating in object mode, chunk must be a {string}, {Buffer}, {TypedArray} or {DataView}. For object mode streams, chunk may be any JavaScript value other than null.

    @param encoding

    The encoding, if chunk is a string.

    @param callback

    Callback for when this chunk of data is flushed.

    @returns

    false if the stream wishes for the calling code to wait for the 'drain' event to be emitted before continuing to write additional data; otherwise true.

  • signal: AbortSignal,
    resource: (event: Event) => void
    ): Disposable;

    Listens once to the abort event on the provided signal.

    Listening to the abort event on abort signals is unsafe and may lead to resource leaks since another third party with the signal can call e.stopImmediatePropagation(). Unfortunately Node.js cannot change this since it would violate the web standard. Additionally, the original API makes it easy to forget to remove listeners.

    This API allows safely using AbortSignals in Node.js APIs by solving these two issues by listening to the event such that stopImmediatePropagation does not prevent the listener from running.

    Returns a disposable so that it may be unsubscribed from more easily.

    import { addAbortListener } from 'node:events';

function example(signal) {
  let disposable;
  try {
    signal.addEventListener('abort', (e) => e.stopImmediatePropagation());
    disposable = addAbortListener(signal, (e) => {
      // Do something when signal is aborted.
    });
  } finally {
    disposable?.[Symbol.dispose]();
  }
}
    @returns

    Disposable that removes the abort listener.

  • static fromWeb(
    writableStream: WritableStream,
    options?: Pick<WritableOptions<Writable>, 'signal' | 'decodeStrings' | 'highWaterMark' | 'objectMode'>

    A utility method for creating a Writable from a web WritableStream.

  • emitter: EventEmitter<DefaultEventMap> | EventTarget,
    name: string | symbol
    ): Function[];

    Returns a copy of the array of listeners for the event named eventName.

    For EventEmitters this behaves exactly the same as calling .listeners on the emitter.

    For EventTargets this is the only way to get the event listeners for the event target. This is useful for debugging and diagnostic purposes.

    import { getEventListeners, EventEmitter } from 'node:events';

{
  const ee = new EventEmitter();
  const listener = () => console.log('Events are fun');
  ee.on('foo', listener);
  console.log(getEventListeners(ee, 'foo')); // [ [Function: listener] ]
}
{
  const et = new EventTarget();
  const listener = () => console.log('Events are fun');
  et.addEventListener('foo', listener);
  console.log(getEventListeners(et, 'foo')); // [ [Function: listener] ]
}
  • emitter: EventEmitter<DefaultEventMap> | EventTarget
    ): number;

    Returns the currently set max amount of listeners.

    For EventEmitters this behaves exactly the same as calling .getMaxListeners on the emitter.

    For EventTargets this is the only way to get the max event listeners for the event target. If the number of event handlers on a single EventTarget exceeds the max set, the EventTarget will print a warning.

    import { getMaxListeners, setMaxListeners, EventEmitter } from 'node:events';

{
  const ee = new EventEmitter();
  console.log(getMaxListeners(ee)); // 10
  setMaxListeners(11, ee);
  console.log(getMaxListeners(ee)); // 11
}
{
  const et = new EventTarget();
  console.log(getMaxListeners(et)); // 10
  setMaxListeners(11, et);
  console.log(getMaxListeners(et)); // 11
}
  • static on(
    emitter: EventEmitter,
    eventName: string | symbol,
    options?: StaticEventEmitterIteratorOptions
    ): AsyncIterator<any[]>;
    import { on, EventEmitter } from 'node:events';
import process from 'node:process';

const ee = new EventEmitter();

// Emit later on
process.nextTick(() => {
  ee.emit('foo', 'bar');
  ee.emit('foo', 42);
});

for await (const event of on(ee, 'foo')) {
  // The execution of this inner block is synchronous and it
  // processes one event at a time (even with await). Do not use
  // if concurrent execution is required.
  console.log(event); // prints ['bar'] [42]
}
// Unreachable here

    Returns an AsyncIterator that iterates eventName events. It will throw if the EventEmitter emits 'error'. It removes all listeners when exiting the loop. The value returned by each iteration is an array composed of the emitted event arguments.

    An AbortSignal can be used to cancel waiting on events:

    import { on, EventEmitter } from 'node:events';
import process from 'node:process';

const ac = new AbortController();

(async () => {
  const ee = new EventEmitter();

  // Emit later on
  process.nextTick(() => {
    ee.emit('foo', 'bar');
    ee.emit('foo', 42);
  });

  for await (const event of on(ee, 'foo', { signal: ac.signal })) {
    // The execution of this inner block is synchronous and it
    // processes one event at a time (even with await). Do not use
    // if concurrent execution is required.
    console.log(event); // prints ['bar'] [42]
  }
  // Unreachable here
})();

process.nextTick(() => ac.abort());

    Use the close option to specify an array of event names that will end the iteration:

    import { on, EventEmitter } from 'node:events';
import process from 'node:process';

const ee = new EventEmitter();

// Emit later on
process.nextTick(() => {
  ee.emit('foo', 'bar');
  ee.emit('foo', 42);
  ee.emit('close');
});

for await (const event of on(ee, 'foo', { close: ['close'] })) {
  console.log(event); // prints ['bar'] [42]
}
// the loop will exit after 'close' is emitted
console.log('done'); // prints 'done'
    @returns

    An AsyncIterator that iterates eventName events emitted by the emitter

    static on(
    emitter: EventTarget,
    eventName: string,
    options?: StaticEventEmitterIteratorOptions
    ): AsyncIterator<any[]>;
    import { on, EventEmitter } from 'node:events';
import process from 'node:process';

const ee = new EventEmitter();

// Emit later on
process.nextTick(() => {
  ee.emit('foo', 'bar');
  ee.emit('foo', 42);
});

for await (const event of on(ee, 'foo')) {
  // The execution of this inner block is synchronous and it
  // processes one event at a time (even with await). Do not use
  // if concurrent execution is required.
  console.log(event); // prints ['bar'] [42]
}
// Unreachable here

    Returns an AsyncIterator that iterates eventName events. It will throw if the EventEmitter emits 'error'. It removes all listeners when exiting the loop. The value returned by each iteration is an array composed of the emitted event arguments.

    An AbortSignal can be used to cancel waiting on events:

    import { on, EventEmitter } from 'node:events';
import process from 'node:process';

const ac = new AbortController();

(async () => {
  const ee = new EventEmitter();

  // Emit later on
  process.nextTick(() => {
    ee.emit('foo', 'bar');
    ee.emit('foo', 42);
  });

  for await (const event of on(ee, 'foo', { signal: ac.signal })) {
    // The execution of this inner block is synchronous and it
    // processes one event at a time (even with await). Do not use
    // if concurrent execution is required.
    console.log(event); // prints ['bar'] [42]
  }
  // Unreachable here
})();

process.nextTick(() => ac.abort());

    Use the close option to specify an array of event names that will end the iteration:

    import { on, EventEmitter } from 'node:events';
import process from 'node:process';

const ee = new EventEmitter();

// Emit later on
process.nextTick(() => {
  ee.emit('foo', 'bar');
  ee.emit('foo', 42);
  ee.emit('close');
});

for await (const event of on(ee, 'foo', { close: ['close'] })) {
  console.log(event); // prints ['bar'] [42]
}
// the loop will exit after 'close' is emitted
console.log('done'); // prints 'done'
    @returns

    An AsyncIterator that iterates eventName events emitted by the emitter

  • static once(
    emitter: EventEmitter,
    eventName: string | symbol,
    options?: StaticEventEmitterOptions
    ): Promise<any[]>;

    Creates a Promise that is fulfilled when the EventEmitter emits the given event or that is rejected if the EventEmitter emits 'error' while waiting. The Promise will resolve with an array of all the arguments emitted to the given event.

    This method is intentionally generic and works with the web platform EventTarget interface, which has no special'error' event semantics and does not listen to the 'error' event.

    import { once, EventEmitter } from 'node:events';
import process from 'node:process';

const ee = new EventEmitter();

process.nextTick(() => {
  ee.emit('myevent', 42);
});

const [value] = await once(ee, 'myevent');
console.log(value);

const err = new Error('kaboom');
process.nextTick(() => {
  ee.emit('error', err);
});

try {
  await once(ee, 'myevent');
} catch (err) {
  console.error('error happened', err);
}

    The special handling of the 'error' event is only used when events.once() is used to wait for another event. If events.once() is used to wait for the 'error' event itself, then it is treated as any other kind of event without special handling:

    import { EventEmitter, once } from 'node:events';

const ee = new EventEmitter();

once(ee, 'error')
  .then(([err]) => console.log('ok', err.message))
  .catch((err) => console.error('error', err.message));

ee.emit('error', new Error('boom'));

// Prints: ok boom

    An AbortSignal can be used to cancel waiting for the event:

    import { EventEmitter, once } from 'node:events';

const ee = new EventEmitter();
const ac = new AbortController();

async function foo(emitter, event, signal) {
  try {
    await once(emitter, event, { signal });
    console.log('event emitted!');
  } catch (error) {
    if (error.name === 'AbortError') {
      console.error('Waiting for the event was canceled!');
    } else {
      console.error('There was an error', error.message);
    }
  }
}

foo(ee, 'foo', ac.signal);
ac.abort(); // Abort waiting for the event
ee.emit('foo'); // Prints: Waiting for the event was canceled!
    static once(
    emitter: EventTarget,
    eventName: string,
    options?: StaticEventEmitterOptions
    ): Promise<any[]>;

    Creates a Promise that is fulfilled when the EventEmitter emits the given event or that is rejected if the EventEmitter emits 'error' while waiting. The Promise will resolve with an array of all the arguments emitted to the given event.

    This method is intentionally generic and works with the web platform EventTarget interface, which has no special'error' event semantics and does not listen to the 'error' event.

    import { once, EventEmitter } from 'node:events';
import process from 'node:process';

const ee = new EventEmitter();

process.nextTick(() => {
  ee.emit('myevent', 42);
});

const [value] = await once(ee, 'myevent');
console.log(value);

const err = new Error('kaboom');
process.nextTick(() => {
  ee.emit('error', err);
});

try {
  await once(ee, 'myevent');
} catch (err) {
  console.error('error happened', err);
}

    The special handling of the 'error' event is only used when events.once() is used to wait for another event. If events.once() is used to wait for the 'error' event itself, then it is treated as any other kind of event without special handling:

    import { EventEmitter, once } from 'node:events';

const ee = new EventEmitter();

once(ee, 'error')
  .then(([err]) => console.log('ok', err.message))
  .catch((err) => console.error('error', err.message));

ee.emit('error', new Error('boom'));

// Prints: ok boom

    An AbortSignal can be used to cancel waiting for the event:

    import { EventEmitter, once } from 'node:events';

const ee = new EventEmitter();
const ac = new AbortController();

async function foo(emitter, event, signal) {
  try {
    await once(emitter, event, { signal });
    console.log('event emitted!');
  } catch (error) {
    if (error.name === 'AbortError') {
      console.error('Waiting for the event was canceled!');
    } else {
      console.error('There was an error', error.message);
    }
  }
}

foo(ee, 'foo', ac.signal);
ac.abort(); // Abort waiting for the event
ee.emit('foo'); // Prints: Waiting for the event was canceled!
  • n?: number,
    ...eventTargets: EventEmitter<DefaultEventMap> | EventTarget[]
    ): void;
    import { setMaxListeners, EventEmitter } from 'node:events';

const target = new EventTarget();
const emitter = new EventEmitter();

setMaxListeners(5, target, emitter);
    @param n

    A non-negative number. The maximum number of listeners per EventTarget event.

    @param eventTargets

    Zero or more {EventTarget} or {EventEmitter} instances. If none are specified, n is set as the default max for all newly created {EventTarget} and {EventEmitter} objects.

  • static toWeb(
    streamWritable: Writable

    A utility method for creating a web WritableStream from a Writable.