Making a HEAD request with resources.GetRemote

support
1

Hello,

I would like to make a HEAD request, in order to get the size in bytes of a file to download.

I’ve added HEAD in the allowed methods:

[security]
  [security.http]
    methods = ['(?i)GET|POST|HEAD']

Also, I’ve tried to specify the method in the GetRemote options:

{{- $options := dict
  "method" "HEAD"
-}}
{{- $url := "https://some-website.com/some-endpoint" -}}
{{- with resources.GetRemote $url $options -}}
  {{- . -}}
{{- end -}}

Unfortunately, I get the same thing as if I did a GET request.

2

I’m pretty sure we pass on the method correctly to Go’s HTTP client. Are you sure the HEAD behaves differently on this particular URL?

3

When I do this:

{{ $url := "https://gohugo.io/img/hugo.png" }}
{{ $opts := dict "method" "head" }}
{{ with resources.GetRemote $url $opts }}
  {{ with .Err }}
    {{ errorf "Unable to get remote resource: %s" . }}
  {{ else }}
    {{ .Content }}
  {{ end }}
{{ else }}
  {{ errorf "Unable to get remote resource: %s" $url }}
{{ end }}

I get:

Unable to get remote resource: error calling resources.GetRemote: failed to read remote resource “https://gohugo.io/img/hugo.png”: unexpected EOF

But the response is captured and cached.

/tmp/hugo_cache/my-project/filecache/getresource/6247740232174893946 
HTTP/2.0 200 OK
Content-Length: 18210
Accept-Ranges: bytes
Age: 0
Cache-Control: public, max-age=0, must-revalidate
Content-Type: image/png
Date: Thu, 05 Jan 2023 18:18:44 GMT
Etag: "32518b4aa48eb4feb7513529c2fbdfde-ssl"
Link: </dist/app.bundle.js>; rel=preload; as=script, </dist/main.css>; rel=preload; as=style
Referrer-Policy: origin-when-cross-origin
Server: Netlify
Strict-Transport-Security: max-age=31536000
X-Content-Type-Options: nosniff
X-Frame-Options: DENY
X-Nf-Request-Id: 01GP1JG8YJZ1VN1CX49TKB067J
X-Xss-Protection: 1; mode=block

4

I don’t think so. I am trying with this URL: "https://gitlab.com/api/v4/projects/6933865/releases/v1.12.3"

When I use curl, I get the head response correctly, but when I use with Hugo, and print the result with {{- . -}}, I get the name of the JSON file it will download with a GET request.

5

I got the same response when I tried to get the head data for a file (which is my final goal).

6

Are you trying to get the size of an asset tied to a GitHub release?

7

Yes! Gitlab and Github.

8

For GitHub assets, see:
https://discourse.gohugo.io/t/get-file-size-of-zip-url/40544/2?

9

Thank you! Github release API has size in the GET response, so it works.

Gitlab release API doesn’t has such a thing. This is why I was tring to get it with another mean.

10

Understood. The HEAD request method appears to be broken. It looks like we have some test coverage for GET and POST, but not for HEAD. I will create a GH issue.

https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo/issues/10604

Can you provide an example GitLab API call to a repo that has assets? I know I’ve used the API before, but I don’t remember the context.

11

Another way would be to contribute to Gitlab API and add the size information, but the Gitlab project is absolutely gigantic and I don’t even know where to find stuff.

Anyway, here is a repo we will actually use:

To get a specific release from the API:

This is the asset I would like to know the size, by first making a HEAD request. However, this is a redirect, and the HEAD gives me a location URL which is the actual URL for downloading the asset.

The URL you should finally get is https://gitlab.com/solarus-games/games/zsdx/uploads/cf5a3455d139ef804e2cb6f84bfebe52/zsdx-v1.12.3.solarus. By making a HEAD request to this URL, you can finally get content-length.

I don’t know if this is the best example to use to add a test because of the redirection.

12

Thank you for the links.

I ran a couple of searches against the 46k open issues and didn’t find anything. I was surprised. I think getting their attention on this would be difficult.

13

Thanks for your help. Tell me if you need anything else.

I’ll write a Hugo partial that I can share here when the HEAD request works.

2 Likes
14

https://github.com/gohugoio/hugo/issues/10604#issuecomment-1373946708