Getting HTTP Response using restler in Node.js

Question 1

Being that you're returning resp it looks like you've forgotten that the request is asynchronous. Instead try out this:

var rest = require('restler');

var getResp = function(url){
  rest.get(url).on('complete', function(response){
    console.log(response);
  });
};

getResp('http://google.com/');

// output:
// <!doctype html><html itemscope="itemscope" ....

Because of its asynchronous nature it's preferred that you pass the value to a receiving callback. Take this small example:

var rest = require('restler');

// process an array of URLs
['http://google.com/',
'http://facebook.com/'].forEach(function(item) {
  getResp(item);
});

function getResp(url){
  rest.get(url).on('complete', function(response){
    processResponse(response);
  });
};

// data will be a Buffer
function processResponse(data) {
  // converting Buffers to strings is expensive, so I prefer
  // to do it explicitely when required
  var str = data.toString();
}

Once the data comes in you'll be able to pass it around like any other variable.

Question 2

return resp; is running before the on('complete' callback gets called because it is asynchronous. This is resulting is the resp variable never getting assigned a value.

Try this:

var rest = require('restler');

var getResp = function(url){
  var result = rest.get(url).on('complete', function(response){
   response;
  });
  return result;
};

getResp('http://google.com/');

You could also use a callback like in this SO answer.