Learn Haxe

Making PUT Calls in the Javascript Target

Posted on 2017-05-23

Tagged with: Haxe

How can you write a Haxe client that can make PUT calls?

According to this StackOverflow question, you can use haxe.Http to make web requests. You can even use the customRequest method to make PUT/PATCH/etc. But, as of writing (with Haxe 3.4.0), this method doesn't work on the Javascript target.

After asking on the mailing list, Franco Ponticelli pointed me to his lovely thx library. I successfully made a REST GET, POST, and PUT call on Neko and JS with his library. Here's how I did it:

• Install (thx.http)[https://github.com/fponticelli/thx.http] from GitHub. That is: clone the repository, and run haxelib dev thx.http . from the repository directory.
• Create a new Haxe project and create a shell/batch file to compile it, including the thx.http library as a dependency. (Sample: haxe -main webclient.Main -cp webclient -js WebClient.js -lib thx.http)
• Create the actual method, accepting (or hard-coding) input parameters (URL, HTTP metohd, and body).

Here's my sample method from prototyping:

public static function httpRequest(method:String, url:String):Void
{
    var body:String = "";

    if (method != "GET") {
        body = "{title: 'foo', body: 'bar', userId: 1}";
    }

    var info:RequestInfo;

    if (method == "GET") {
        info = new RequestInfo(Get, url, [
            "Agent" => "thx.http.Request"
        ]);
    } else {
        info = new RequestInfo(Put, url, Text(body));
    }

    Request.make(info, Json)
    .response
    .flatMap(function(r) {
        trace('${method} DONE (r=${r.statusCode}): ${r.body}');
        return r.body;
    })
    .success(function(r) trace("Request successful: " + r))
    .failure(function(e) trace("Request FAILED: " + e));
}

Notice it uses promises (via the thx libraries) to make the HTTP request and print out the results.

I compiled this against Neko and JS and both targets run and make a POST call successfully.

For testing, you can use the JSON Placeholder faux web-service. It allows you to make GET/POST/PUT/etc. calls, with minimal validation.