Downloading binary data

Could you please document somewhere the function at https://github.com/visionmedia/superagent/blob/054782dfaa3f0fd360411be0cbd0f8319d8a75b9/lib/node/index.js#L346? It is tremendously useful if you just want to download binary data. You can use it like this:

var stream = fs.createWriteStream('path/to/my/file.zip');

request.get('http://example.com/file.zip').pipe(stream);

Note: IT does NOT work if you use the Reponse#pipe() method. That method only produces garbage.

[sebastialonso]

Thanks for your reply @kornelski Yesterday I lost all my afternoon trying to trigger the error event on the pipe, forcing a 401 on my request, so I can say with a very high degree of confidence that the event it’s either not being fired by the request error, or it’s not working.

return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    stream.on("finish", () => {
      console.log("File saved")
      resolve(stream.path);
    });
    stream.on("error", (err) => {
      console.log("error in request")
    })
  });

[kornelski]

You can’t directly. You have to call either .pipe() or .then/.end() first to make the request.

There’s response event which lets you inspect the headers as soon as they arrive. Then you can unpipe?

Also with the pipe you should get error event on the pipe.