Question

I am testing an XML-RPC set up in node.js and would like to test the server receiving calls and responding as well as the client making calls to the server and receiving a response in the same node session. If I run http.createServer and http.request with the same host and port, I get:

Error: ECONNREFUSED, Connection refused
at Socket._onConnect (net.js:600:18)
at IOWatcher.onWritable [as callback] (net.js:186:12)

Test code that will generate the errror:

var http = require('http')

var options = {
  host: 'localhost'
, port: 8000
}

// Set up server and start listening
http.createServer(function (req, res) {
  res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'text/plain'})
  res.end('success')
}).listen(options.port, options.host)

// Client call
// Gets Error: ECONNREFUSED, Connection refused
var clientRequest = http.request(options, function(res) {
  res.on('data', function (chunk) {
    console.log('Called')
  })
})

clientRequest.write('')
clientRequest.end()

While the code above will work if separated into two files and run as separate node instances, is there a way to get the above to run on the same node instance?

Answer 1

As it was mentioned above your http-server may not be running at the time you make a request. Using setTimeout is completely wrong. Use the callback parameter in listen method instead:

var http = require('http')

var options = {
  host: 'localhost'
, port: 8000
}

// Set up server and start listening
http.createServer(function (req, res) {
  res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'text/plain'})
  res.end('success')
}).listen(options.port, options.host, function() {
  // Client call
  // No error, server is listening
  var clientRequest = http.request(options, function(res) {
    res.on('data', function (chunk) {
      console.log('Called')
    })
  })

  clientRequest.write('')
  clientRequest.end()
});