Posting Jquery Data to Express

Question

No matter what combination of req.params/req.query/req.body and $.post({..} I use, I am unable to extract JSON data from my Jquery post request in express.

This is my jQuery:

$.post("/mail", {email : "s@gmail.com", name : "s@gmail.com"});

I have also tried various permutations of:

$.ajax({type: "POST", url: "/mail", dataType :"json", data :
{email : "s@gmail.com", name : "s@gmail.com"}});

This is my node.js express code:

app.post("/mail", function(req, res) {
   console.log(req.body.name);
   console.log(req.route);
   console.log("params1: " + req.param.params);
....

I have tried endless ways of accessing the data email and name without success. I'd be surprised if the solution were a simple modification to req.body/ req.params but anything is possible! The data just ain't there! (It does not appear in my url either -- all I see is localhost:1337)

req.body / req.params / req.param.params / req.params all return undefined and req.query returns [].

req.route returns:

{ path: '/mail',
  method: 'post',
  callbacks: [ [Function] ],
  keys: [],
  regexp: /^\/mail\/?$/i,
  params: [] }

I've tried adding:

app.use(express.bodyParser());

But, admittedly, I do not fully understand its purpose. Any help is greatly appreciated.

Happy holidays! // Sam

Maybe this will help you a bit? http://stackoverflow.com/questions/5710358/how-to-get-post-query-in-express-node-js — Henrik Andersson, Dec 19 '12 at 12:29
The `bodyParser` middleware is the one initializing `req.body` from the POST body, so you really need that. Make sure you use it before you mount your routes (i.e. before you either do `app.use(app.router)` or your first `app.get`/`app.post` etc call). — Linus Thiel, Dec 19 '12 at 12:36
What Linus said, make sure in your configuration bodyParser is set BEFORE your routing. — leepowell, Dec 19 '12 at 13:46
What do you know! That fixed it. `app.use(express.bodyParser());` just had to come before the first app.get/post . Thanks a lot! — user1915666, Dec 19 '12 at 14:29

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Dec 19 '12 at 21:29

You'll have to add the bodyParser() middleware before any routes that use it, like so:

app.use(express.bodyParser());

app.post('/mail', function(req, res) {
    console.log(req.body); // the body attribute will be created by the bodyParser()
});

The way express works is that each request is trickled down through your middleware and routes in the order that they're declared. Since the bodyParser() middleware is now declared before your route, it'll have a chance to parse the body of the request into a nice JSON format, stick that parsed value into req.body, and then pass on control to the next route/middleware; otherwise, req.body will simply not exists.

Posting Jquery Data to Express

1 Answers1