Difference between HttpModule and HttpClientModule

Question

Which one to use to build a mock web service to test the Angular 4 app?

Answer 1

Use the HttpClient class from HttpClientModule if you're using Angular 4.3.x and above:

import { HttpClientModule } from '@angular/common/http';

@NgModule({
 imports: [
   BrowserModule,
   HttpClientModule
 ],
 ...

 class MyService() {
    constructor(http: HttpClient) {...}

It's an upgraded version of http from @angular/http module with the following improvements:

• Interceptors allow middleware logic to be inserted into the pipeline
• Immutable request/response objects
• Progress events for both request upload and response download

You can read about how it works in Insider’s guide into interceptors and HttpClient mechanics in Angular.

• Typed, synchronous response body access, including support for JSON body types
• JSON is an assumed default and no longer needs to be explicitly parsed
• Post-request verification & flush based testing framework

Going forward the old http client will be deprecated. Here are the links to the commit message and the official docs.

Also pay attention that old http was injected using Http class token instead of the new HttpClient:

import { HttpModule } from '@angular/http';

@NgModule({
 imports: [
   BrowserModule,
   HttpModule
 ],
 ...

 class MyService() {
    constructor(http: Http) {...}

Also, new HttpClient seem to require tslib in runtime, so you have to install it npm i tslib and update system.config.js if you're using SystemJS:

map: {
     ...
    'tslib': 'npm:tslib/tslib.js',

And you need to add another mapping if you use SystemJS:

'@angular/common/http': 'npm:@angular/common/bundles/common-http.umd.js',