silkimenCordova Advanced HTTP
Cordova / Phonegap plugin for communicating with HTTP servers. Supports iOS, Android and Browser.
This is a fork of Wymsee's Cordova-HTTP plugin.
Advantages over Javascript requests
- SSL / TLS Pinning
- CORS restrictions do not apply
- X.509 client certificate based authentication
- Handling of HTTP code 401 - read more at Issue CB-2415
Updates
Please check CHANGELOG.md for details about updating to a new version.
Installation
The plugin conforms to the Cordova plugin specification, it can be installed using the Cordova / Phonegap command line interface.
phonegap plugin add cordova-plugin-advanced-http
cordova plugin add cordova-plugin-advanced-httpPlugin Preferences
AndroidBlacklistSecureSocketProtocols: define a blacklist of secure socket protocols for Android. This preference allows you to disable protocols which are considered unsafe. You need to provide a comma-separated list of protocols (check Android SSLSocket#protocols docu for protocol names).
e.g. blacklist SSLv3 and TLSv1:
<preference name="AndroidBlacklistSecureSocketProtocols" value="SSLv3,TLSv1" />Usage
Plain Cordova
This plugin registers a global object located at cordova.plugin.http.
With Ionic-native wrapper
Check the Ionic docs for how to use this plugin with Ionic-native.
Synchronous Functions
getBasicAuthHeader
This returns an object representing a basic HTTP Authorization header of the form {'Authorization': 'Basic base64encodedusernameandpassword'}
var header = cordova.plugin.http.getBasicAuthHeader('user', 'password');useBasicAuth
This sets up all future requests to use Basic HTTP authentication with the given username and password.
cordova.plugin.http.useBasicAuth('user', 'password');setHeader
Set a header for all future requests to a specified host. Takes a hostname, a header and a value (must be a string value or null).
cordova.plugin.http.setHeader('Hostname', 'Header', 'Value');You can also define headers used for all hosts by using wildcard character "*" or providing only two params.
cordova.plugin.http.setHeader('*', 'Header', 'Value');
cordova.plugin.http.setHeader('Header', 'Value');The hostname also includes the port number. If you define a header for www.example.com it will not match following URL http://www.example.com:8080.
// will match http://www.example.com/...
cordova.plugin.http.setHeader('www.example.com', 'Header', 'Value');
// will match http://www.example.com:8080/...
cordova.plugin.http.setHeader('www.example.com:8080', 'Header', 'Value');setDataSerializer
Set the data serializer which will be used for all future PATCH, POST and PUT requests. Takes a string representing the name of the serializer.
cordova.plugin.http.setDataSerializer('urlencoded');You can choose one of these:
urlencoded: send data as url encoded content in body- default content type "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
- data must be an dictionary style
Object
json: send data as JSON encoded content in body- default content type "application/json"
- data must be an
Arrayor an dictionary styleObject
utf8: send data as plain UTF8 encoded string in body- default content type "plain/text"
- data must be a
String
multipart: send FormData objects as multipart content in body- default content type "multipart/form-data"
- data must be an
FormDatainstance
raw: send data as is, without any processing- default content type "application/octet-stream"
- data must be an
Uint8Arrayor anArrayBuffer
This defaults to urlencoded. You can also override the default content type headers by specifying your own headers (see setHeader).
:warning: urlencoded does not support serializing deep structures whereas json does.
:warning: multipart depends on several Web API standards which need to be supported in your web view. Check out https://github.com/silkimen/cordova-plugin-advanced-http/wiki/Web-APIs-required-for-Multipart-requests for more info.
setRequestTimeout
Set the "read" timeout in seconds. This is the timeout interval to use when waiting for additional data.
cordova.plugin.http.setRequestTimeout(5.0);setFollowRedirect
Configure if it should follow redirects automatically. This defaults to true.
cordova.plugin.http.setFollowRedirect(true);getCookieString
Returns saved cookies (as string) matching given URL.
cordova.plugin.http.getCookieString(url);setCookie
Add a custom cookie. Takes a URL, a cookie string and an options object. See ToughCookie documentation for allowed options.
cordova.plugin.http.setCookie(url, cookie, options);clearCookies
Clear the cookie store.
cordova.plugin.http.clearCookies();Asynchronous Functions
These functions all take success and error callbacks as their last 2 arguments.
setServerTrustMode
Set server trust mode, being one of the following values:
default: default SSL trustship and hostname verification handling using system's CA certslegacy: use legacy default behavior (< 2.0.3), excluding user installed CA certs (only for Android)nocheck: disable SSL certificate checking and hostname verification, trusting all certs (meant to be used only for testing purposes)pinned: trust only provided certificates
To use SSL pinning you must include at least one .cer SSL certificate in your app project. You can pin to your server certificate or to one of the issuing CA certificates. Include your certificate in the www/certificates folder. All .cer files found there will be loaded automatically.
:warning: Your certificate must be DER encoded! If you only have a PEM encoded certificate read this stackoverflow answer. You want to convert it to a DER encoded certificate with a .cer extension.
// enable SSL pinning
cordova.plugin.http.setServerTrustMode('pinned', function() {
console.log('success!');
}, function() {
console.log('error :(');
});
// use system's default CA certs
cordova.plugin.http.setServerTrustMode('default', function() {
console.log('success!');
}, function() {
console.log('error :(');
});
// disable SSL cert checking, only meant for testing purposes, do NOT use in production!
cordova.plugin.http.setServerTrustMode('nocheck', function() {
console.log('success!');
}, function() {
console.log('error :(');
});setClientAuthMode
Configure X.509 client certificate authentication. Takes mode and options. mode being one of following values:
none: disable client certificate authenticationsystemstore(only on Android): use client certificate installed in the Android system store; user will be presented with a list of all installed certificatesbuffer: use given client certificate; you will need to provide an options object:rawPkcs: ArrayBuffer containing raw PKCS12 container with client certificate and private keypkcsPassword: password of the PKCS container
// enable client auth using PKCS12 container given in ArrayBuffer `myPkcs12ArrayBuffer`
cordova.plugin.http.setClientAuthMode('buffer', {
rawPkcs: myPkcs12ArrayBuffer,
pkcsPassword: 'mySecretPassword'
}, success, fail);
// enable client auth using certificate in system store (only on Android)
cordova.plugin.http.setClientAuthMode('systemstore', {}, success, fail);
// disable client auth
cordova.plugin.http.setClientAuthMode('none', {}, success, fail);removeCookies
Remove all cookies associated with a given URL.
cordova.plugin.http.removeCookies(url, callback);sendRequest
Execute a HTTP request. Takes a URL and an options object. This is the internally used implementation of the following shorthand functions (post, get, put, patch, delete, head, uploadFile and downloadFile). You can use this function, if you want to override global settings for each single request. Check the documentation of the respective shorthand function for details on what is returned on success and failure.
:warning: You need to encode the base URL yourself if it contains special characters like whitespaces. You can use encodeURI() for this purpose.
The options object contains following keys:
method: HTTP method to be used, defaults toget, needs to be one of the following values:get,post,put,patch,head,delete,options,upload,download
data: payload to be send to the server (only applicable onpost,putorpatchmethods)params: query params to be appended to the URL (only applicable onget,head,delete,uploadordownloadmethods)serializer: data serializer to be used (only applicable onpost,putorpatchmethods), defaults to global serializer value, see setDataSerializer for supported valuesresponseType: expected response type, defaults totext, needs to be one of the following values:text: data is returned as decoded string, use this for all kinds of string responses (e.g. XML, HTML, plain text, etc.)jsondata is treated as JSON and returned as parsed object, returnsundefinedwhen response body is emptyarraybuffer: data is returned as ArrayBuffer instance, returnsnullwhen response body is emptyblob: data is returned as Blob instance, returnsnullwhen response body is empty
timeout: timeout value for the request in seconds, defaults to global timeout valuefollowRedirect: enable or disable automatically following redirectsheaders: headers object (key value pair), will be merged with global valuesfilePath: file path(s) to be used during upload and download see uploadFile and downloadFile for detailed informationname: name(s) to be used during upload see uploadFile for detailed information
Here's a quick example:
const options = {
method: 'post',
data: { id: 12, message: 'test' },
headers: { Authorization: 'OAuth2: token' }
};
cordova.plugin.http.sendRequest('https://google.com/', options, function(response) {
// prints 200
console.log(response.status);
}, function(response) {
// prints 403
console.log(response.status);
//prints Permission denied
console.log(response.error);
});post
Execute a POST request. Takes a URL, data, and headers.
cordova.plugin.http.post('https://google.com/', {
test: 'testString'
}, {
Authorization: 'OAuth2: token'
}, function(response) {
console.log(response.status);
}, function(response) {
console.error(response.error);
});success
The success function receives a response object with 4 properties: status, data, url, and headers. status is the HTTP response code as numeric value. data is the response from the server as a string. url is the final URL obtained after any redirects as a string. headers is an object with the headers. The keys of the returned object are the header names and the values are the respective header values. All header names are lowercase.
Here's a quick example:
{
status: 200,
data: '{"id": 12, "message": "test"}',
url: 'http://example.net/rest'
headers: {
'content-length': '247'
}
}Most apis will return JSON meaning you'll want to parse the data like in the example below:
cordova.plugin.http.post('https://google.com/', {
id: 12,
message: 'test'
}, { Authorization: 'OAuth2: token' }, function(response) {
// prints 200
console.log(response.status);
try {
response.data = JSON.parse(response.data);
// prints test
console.log(response.data.message);
} catch(e) {
console.error('JSON parsing error');
}
}, function(response) {
// prints 403
console.log(response.status);
//prints Permission denied
console.log(response.error);
});failure
The error function receives a response object with 4 properties: status, error, url, and headers (url and headers being optional). status is a HTTP response code or an internal error code. Positive values are HTTP status codes whereas negative values do represent internal error codes. error is the error response from the server as a string or an internal error message. url is the final URL obtained after any redirects as a string. headers is an object with the headers. The keys of the returned object are the header names and the values are the respective header values. All header names are lowercase.
Here's a quick example:
{
status: 403,
error: 'Permission denied',
url: 'http://example.net/noperm'
headers: {
'content-length': '247'
}
}:warning: An enumeration style object is exposed as cordova.plugin.http.ErrorCode. You can use it to check against internal error codes.
get
Execute a GET request. Takes a URL, parameters, and headers. See the post documentation for details on what is returned on success and failure.
cordova.plugin.http.get('https://google.com/', {
id: '12',
message: 'test'
}, { Authorization: 'OAuth2: token' }, function(response) {
console.log(response.status);
}, function(response) {
console.error(response.error);
});put
Execute a PUT request. Takes a URL, data, and headers. See the post documentation for details on what is returned on success and failure.
patch
Execute a PATCH request. Takes a URL, data, and headers. See the post documentation for details on what is returned on success and failure.
delete
Execute a DELETE request. Takes a URL, parameters, and headers. See the post documentation for details on what is returned on success and failure.
head
Execute a HEAD request. Takes a URL, parameters, and headers. See the post documentation for details on what is returned on success and failure.
options
Execute a OPTIONS request. Takes a URL, parameters, and headers. See the post documentation for details on what is returned on success and failure.
uploadFile
Uploads one or more file(s) saved on the device. Takes a URL, parameters, headers, filePath(s), and the name(s) of the parameter to pass the file along as. See the post documentation for details on what is returned on success and failure.
// e.g. for single file
const filePath = 'file:///somepicture.jpg';
const name = 'picture';
// e.g. for multiple files
const filePath = ['file:///somepicture.jpg', 'file:///somedocument.doc'];
const name = ['picture', 'document'];
cordova.plugin.http.uploadFile("https://google.com/", {
id: '12',
message: 'test'
}, { Authorization: 'OAuth2: token' }, filePath, name, function(response) {
console.log(response.status);
}, function(response) {
console.error(response.error);
});downloadFile
Downloads a file and saves it to the device. Takes a URL, parameters, headers, and a filePath. See post documentation for details on what is returned on failure. On success this function returns a cordova FileEntry object.
cordova.plugin.http.downloadFile("https://google.com/", {
id: '12',
message: 'test'
}, { Authorization: 'OAuth2: token' }, 'file:///somepicture.jpg', function(entry) {
// prints the filename
console.log(entry.name);
// prints the filePath
console.log(entry.fullPath);
}, function(response) {
console.error(response.error);
});abort
Abort a HTTP request. Takes the requestId which is returned by sendRequest and its shorthand functions (post, get, put, patch, delete, head, uploadFile and downloadFile).
If the request already has finished, the request will finish normally and the abort call result will be { aborted: false }.
If the request is still in progress, the request's failure callback will be invoked with response { status: -8 }, and the abort call result { aborted: true }.
:warning: Not supported for Android < 6 (API level < 23). For Android 5.1 and below, calling abort(reqestId) will have no effect, i.e. the requests will finish as if the request was not cancelled.
// start a request and get its requestId
var requestId = cordova.plugin.http.downloadFile("https://google.com/", {
id: '12',
message: 'test'
}, { Authorization: 'OAuth2: token' }, 'file:///somepicture.jpg', function(entry) {
// prints the filename
console.log(entry.name);
// prints the filePath
console.log(entry.fullPath);
}, function(response) {
// if request was actually aborted, failure callback with status -8 will be invoked
if(response.status === -8){
console.log('download aborted');
} else {
console.error(response.error);
}
});
//...
// abort request
cordova.plugin.http.abort(requestId, function(result) {
// prints if request was aborted: true | false
console.log(result.aborted);
}, function(response) {
console.error(response.error);
});Browser support
This plugin supports a very restricted set of functions on the browser platform. It's meant for testing purposes, not for production grade usage.
Following features are not supported:
- Manipulating Cookies
- Uploading and Downloading files
- Pinning SSL certificate
- Disabling SSL certificate check
- Disabling transparently following redirects (HTTP codes 3xx)
- Circumventing CORS restrictions
Libraries
This plugin utilizes some awesome open source libraries:
- iOS - AFNetworking (MIT licensed)
- Android - http-request (MIT licensed)
- Cookie handling - tough-cookie (BSD-3-Clause licensed)
We made a few modifications to the networking libraries.
CI Builds & E2E Testing
This plugin uses amazing cloud services to maintain quality. CI Builds and E2E testing are powered by:
Local Testing
First, install current package with npm install to fetch dev dependencies.
Then, to execute Javascript tests:
npm run testjsAnd, to execute E2E tests:
- setup local Android sdk and emulators, or Xcode and simulators for iOS
- launch emulator or simulator
- install Appium (see Getting Started)
- start
appium
- start
- run
- updating client and server certificates, building test app, and running e2e tests
npm run testandroid npm run testios
- updating client and server certificates, building test app, and running e2e tests
Contribute & Develop
We've set up a separate document for our contribution guidelines.