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JavaScript

what does http and https mean? and also i'm confusing this piece of code below

var https = require("https"); var username = "rostyklukavyi2"; function searchUserPoints (username, points, badges) { const message = My username is ${username} i have ${points} and i have ${badges} badge\'s; console.log(message); }

var request = https.get(https://teamtreehouse.com/${username}.json, response => {

                    var body = "";  <--- ?? why do we need to make this string!

                   response.on('data', data => {   <--???
                      body += data.toString();     <--??
                    });                            <--
                    response.on('end', () =>{
                      const profile = JSON.parse(body);   <--
                      searchUserPoints(username, profile.points.JavaScript, profile.badges.length);
                    });
                  });

1 Answer

Steven Parker
Steven Parker
230,274 Points

HTTP stands for "Hyper Text Transfer Protocol".

It's how web data moves on the internet. There's a sercurity version of it (with the letter "s" added) that encrypts the data to prevent interception by unauthorized parties along the transfer path.

And the reason to make body a string is that as data arrives, the callback functions concatenates an additional string to it ("body += data.toString()"). You can't add to a variable like this unless it has already been initialized.