How to catch http client request exceptions in node.js

I stumbled across another solution while I was researching a similar problem. http.Client emits an 'error' event if a connection can't be established for any reason. If you handle this event then the exception won't be thrown:

var http = require('http');
var sys = require('sys');

function checkSite(url) {
    var site = http.createClient(80, url);
    site.on('error', function(err) {
        sys.debug('unable to connect to ' + url);
    });
    var request = site.request('GET', '/', {'host': url});
    request.end();
    request.on('response', function(res) {
        sys.debug('status code: ' + res.statusCode);
    });
}

checkSite("www.google.com");
checkSite("foo.bar.blrfl.org");

Of course, the connection error and the response to the request both arrive asynchronously, meaning that simply returning the request won't work. Instead, you'd have to notify the caller of the results from within the event handlers.

http.createClient has been deprecated.

Here is a quick example of how to handle errors using the new http.request:

var http = require("http");

var options = {
    host : "www.example.com"
};

var request = http.request(options, function(req) {
    ...
});
request.on('error', function(err) {
    // Handle error
});

request.end();