URL interface not accessible

Feature Requests
1

Describe the issue/error/question

Hi yall, Ive been using n8n for a while now and today I wanted to use the URL URL() - Web APIs | MDN interface inside a function node but ran into an error.

ReferenceError: URL is not defined
    at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/n8n/node_modules/n8n-nodes-base/dist/nodes/FunctionItem:5:13
    at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/n8n/node_modules/n8n-nodes-base/dist/nodes/FunctionItem:16:2
    at BaseHandler.apply (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/n8n/node_modules/vm2/lib/bridge.js:479:11)
    at NodeVM.run (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/n8n/node_modules/vm2/lib/nodevm.js:425:23)
    at Object.execute (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/n8n/node_modules/n8n-nodes-base/dist/nodes/FunctionItem/FunctionItem.node.js:106:41)
    at Workflow.runNode (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/n8n/node_modules/n8n-workflow/dist/src/Workflow.js:526:37)
    at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/n8n/node_modules/n8n-core/dist/src/WorkflowExecute.js:451:62

Does anybody know why the URL interface is not accessible? I’m using the n8n cloud version and just checked the node version, which is 16.14. According to mdn the URL interface is available since node 10…

Please share the workflow

Information on your n8n setup

  • n8n version: 0.166.0
  • Database you’re using (default: SQLite): don’t know, hosted version
  • Running n8n with the execution process [own(default), main]: don’t know what you mean
  • Running n8n via [Docker, npm, n8n.cloud, desktop app]: n8n.cloud
2

Hi @jodeldiplomant welcome to the community :tada: What are you trying to accomplish? And have you tried the http node? HTTP Request | Docs

3

As I already described, I’m trying to use the URL interface inside a function node, but it isn’t available and I’m wondering why that is the case. Sure, I could work around it, but I want to know why I can’t access use the URL interface, especially given that it usually is provided with the node version that n8n is running on, 16.14.0.
And I don’t quite understand how the HTTP node could be of use for my problem, please enlighten me

4

Hey @jodeldiplomant,

It also fails on self hosted installs as the default option we use is to disable built in modules, For self hosted installs NODE_FUNCTION_ALLOW_BUILTIN would need to be set but for Cloud things are a bit different.

@MutedJam Do you have any thoughts on this one?

1 Like
5

I see, thanks for your insights. Do you know if there is any way to get access to builtin modules in the cloud version? Switching to selfhosted sadly isn’t an option for me

6

That is a good question it all depends on the Cloud team, I am not sure what the exact rules are for Cloud and built in modules but @MutedJam will have more of an idea on that one :slight_smile:

1 Like
7

Cheers. I suppose that I’ll just the regex on it’s own for now, should do the job as well

8

Seems you need to require it first on Node.js, but for n8n that would mean you’d first need to specifically allow it via the respective NODE_FUNCTION_ALLOW_BUILTIN environment variable.

Unfortunately, it’s not possible to manually configure your own environment on n8n.cloud, so I shall convert this into a feature request allowing you and other users to vote on it. From what I remember even though this is a small change it took quite a while to allow a module for all cloud users the last time such a request came up unfortunately (it was momentjs back then).

So if you have working regex that would definitely make things easier on n8n.cloud.

Edit: In case someone is self-hosting n8n and stumbles across this thread, NODE_FUNCTION_ALLOW_BUILTIN=url would indeed do the trick. Just tested this syntax in my Function node:

const URL = require('url').URL;
const myURL = new URL('http://www.n8n.io/foo?bar=1#main');

return [{
  hostname: myURL.host
}];

image

1 Like
10

@jodeldiplomant I just wanted to let you know that maybe another node may do what you’re trying to accomplish … that’s all.

1 Like