How to buffer an HTTP response using the request module?

var options = {
    headers: {
        'Content-Length': contentLength,
        'Content-Type': 'application/octet-stream'
    },
    url: 'http://localhost:3000/lottery/lt',
    body: formData,
    encoding: null, // make response body to Buffer.
    method: 'POST'
};

set encoding to null, return Buffer.

The request module buffers the response for you. In the callback, body is a string (or Buffer).

You only get a stream back from request if you don't provide a callback; request() returns a Stream.

See the docs for more detail and examples.

---

request assumes that the response is text, so it tries to convert the response body into a sring (regardless of the MIME type). This will corrupt binary data. If you want to get the raw bytes, specify a null encoding.

request({url:'http://google.com/doodle.png', encoding:null}, function (error, response, body) {
    db.images.insert({ filename: 'google.png', imgData: body}, function (err) {

        // handle errors etc.

    }); 
});