nodejs / nodejs/undici

fetch: limit web streams usage in body mixin methods

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good first issue
Dominant language
JavaScript
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Description

The fetch spec requires us to create a new web Readable stream for every Response and Request object, which can likely be avoided in most cases.

Given the following examples:

new Response('abc')
new Response(new TextEncoder().encode('abc'))
new Response(new Blob(['abc']))
// etc.

A web stream is created and then converted back to a string (or blob, arraybuffer, etc.)! The following diff improves .text() performance when the body passed is a string by 10%, as a simple demo (we could further limit web stream usage for more performance gains!!!).

diff --git a/lib/fetch/response.js b/lib/fetch/response.js
index 1029dbef..c2d2bd3d 100644
--- a/lib/fetch/response.js
+++ b/lib/fetch/response.js
@@ -154,7 +154,7 @@ class Response {
     // 4. If body is non-null, then set bodyWithType to the result of extracting body.
     if (body != null) {
       const [extractedBody, type] = extractBody(body)
-      bodyWithType = { body: extractedBody, type }
+      bodyWithType = { body: extractedBody, type, source: body }
     }

     // 5. Perform initialize a response given this, init, and bodyWithType.
diff --git a/lib/fetch/util.js b/lib/fetch/util.js
index 400687ba..9e4302a9 100644
--- a/lib/fetch/util.js
+++ b/lib/fetch/util.js
@@ -824,6 +824,11 @@ function fullyReadBody (body, processBody, processBodyError) {
   //    with taskDestination.
   const errorSteps = (error) => queueMicrotask(() => processBodyError(error))

+  if (typeof body.source === 'string') {
+    successSteps(new TextEncoder().encode(body.source))
+    return
+  }
+
   // 4. Let reader be the result of getting a reader for body’s stream.
   //    If that threw an exception, then run errorSteps with that
   //    exception and return.

cc @anonrig

Contributor guide

Open the contributing guide

First steps

  1. Read the whole issue, then the project's contributing guide.
  2. Comment on the issue to say you are picking it up — it saves two people doing the same work.
  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reviewing lib/fetch/response.js and lib/fetch/util.js, especially the body extraction and fullyReadBody paths shown in the issue. Determine which direct body sources can avoid web-stream conversion while preserving the existing Response and Request behavior, then verify the affected body mixin operations and their performance.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
javascript, nodejs
Domain
api, backend
Issue type
Refactor
Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
35/100

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