How to "cancel" a body using request?

[WTCT-TOP]

Hi,

In this section of the README it states that "it is important to always either consume or cancel the response body", but only shows examples with fetch (and not request)..

1. Does this apply to request too? (from the manual tests I did it seems like it, but just to make sure..)
2. Is response.body.destroy() the correct way to "cancel" the body? If it is, how can I make sure it will not throw/emit an error?

Thanks

[metcoder95]

1. Yes, it also applies.
2. Using response.body.dump() will be better.

[WTCT-TOP]

Thank you for the quick response! :)

1. its better to use dump even if I don't care about the body at all? there is no way to just destroy the socket at that point (am I missing something about how HTTP works?)?

const response = await request('...');
if (response.statusCode === 401) {
  // I don't care about the body at all here
  throw new Error('401');
}

2. dump has a limit option which defaults to 131072, what if the body is bigger than that?

3. should I update the docs?

[metcoder95]

1. Yes. Even if you don't care about it, the response is still buffered in memory for consumption. Only after the response object is collected by the GC, the memory of the response's body will be eventually freed. Under high-traffic situations, this can cause some harm to the overall performance of your app.
2. The dump method will discard the body up to that threshold to re-use the same connection. If above the threshold, the connection will be dropped (and eventually a new one will be made).
3. Sure! Any contribution is really welcomed!

[WTCT-TOP]

1. So the main reason to dump is to be able to reuse connections?
2. This is the current code in the docs, which unlike dump does not have a limit (I think), which one is "wrong"?

for await (const chunk of res.body) {
  // force consumption of body
}

3. Does this makes sense as an example for request?

// Do
const response = await request(url)
  .then(res => {
    response.body.dump().catch(err => {
      console.error('Error while dumping the body');
      // is there anything I can/should do here?
    });
    return res.headers;
  });

// Do not
const response = await request(url)
  .then(res => res.headers);

[metcoder95]

1. Partially, also to help dump the response's data if not needed at all
2. A res.body can be added as option
3. Yes, sure; I'd just simplify it to:

// Do
const response = await request(url)
const headers = request.headers // Do something with headers
await response.body.dump()

// Do not
const response = await request(url)
const headers = request.headers // Do something with headers

Something down the line