Node.js Application Performance

Question

I currently have a node.js script sitting on Azure that gets a file (via a download URL link to that file) and base64 encodes it, and then sends this base64 encoded file back to the request source. The problem I am running into is performance based. The script below, in some instances, is timing out a separate application by having a run time over 30 seconds. The file in question on one of these timeouts was under a MB in size. Any ideas?

The script:

const express = require('express');
const bodyParser = require('body-parser');


const https   = require('https');
const fs      = require('fs');
const request = require('request');
const util    = require('util');
const port    = process.env.PORT || 3000;

var app       = express();


app.use(bodyParser.json());



app.post('/base64file',  (req, res) => {


    var fileURL = req.body.fileURL;
    var listenerToken = req.body.listenerToken;

    var testingData = {
        fileURL: fileURL,
        listenerToken: listenerToken
    };



    /*
        Make sure correct token is used to access endpoint..
     */
    if( listenerToken !== <removedforprivacy> ) {
        res.status(401);
        res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'application/json');
        res.send(JSON.stringify({ error: 'You are not authorized'}));
    } else if ( !fileURL ){
        res.status(400);
        res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'application/json');
        res.send(JSON.stringify({ error: 'The request could not be understood by the server due to malformed syntax.'}));
    } else {

        https.get(fileURL, function(response) {
            var data = [];


            response.on('data', function(chunk) {
                data.push(chunk);
            }).on('end', function() {
                //build the base64 endoded file
                var buffer = Buffer.concat(data).toString('base64');
                //data to return
                var returnData = {
                    base64File: buffer
                };

                if( buffer.length > 0 ) {
                    res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'application/json');
                    res.status(200);
                    res.send(JSON.stringify(returnData));
                } else {
                    res.setHeader('Content-Type', 'application/json');
                    res.status(404);
                    res.send(JSON.stringify({ error: 'File URL not found.'}));
                }
            });
        });

    }
});


app.listen(port,  () => {
    console.log('Server is up and running ' + port);
});

Answer 1

One idea: you are missing error handling.

If you get an error on the https.get() , you will just never send a response and the original request will timeout.