parse http response content string

Question

I am working with javascript in Meteor and I make an HTTP.get request to an API and receive a response res = {..., content: "access_token=4h378fi243h085giouf245&expires=5180430", data=null}. As you can see, res.content is a string but it really represent a nice JSON object {access_token: 4h378fi243h085giouf245, expires: 5180430}.

Is there a Meteor or Javascript package/easy solution to turn that string into that object?

(I've seen some manual string parsing solutions but that seems hacky, and this seems like something Meteor or Javascript would provide for you.)

EDIT: Doing JSON.parse(res.content) is actually the first thing I tried but it gives me 'Unexpected token a', I'm guessing from 'access_token'. Why would that not work?

I do `JSON.parse(res.content)` and it gives me `Unexpected token a`, from 'access_token' I guess. — tscizzle, Jul 24 '14 at 20:02

score 2 · Answer 1 · 2014-07-24T20:06:40.870

2

It actually isn't JSON, it's a URL parameters string.

var result = {};
res.content.split("&").forEach(function(part) {
  var item = part.split("=");
  result[item[0]] = decodeURIComponent(item[1]);
});
result = JSON.parse(result);

edited Jul 24 '14 at 20:06

answered Jul 24 '14 at 19:58

score 1 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 12:01

All the answers here forget the fact that res.content is not JSON, but is a query string. See this question for how to get the values, with a little tweaking: How can I get query string values in JavaScript?.

I also created a JavaScript class lib called Cerealizer that parses a query string into an object. I'm sure a github search could pull up others as well.

var parser = new Cerealizer.QueryString();

res.content = parser.deserialize(res.content);

score -2 · Answer 3 · answered Jul 24 '14 at 19:58

-2

JSON.parse should do what you are trying to do.

answered Jul 24 '14 at 19:58

mailmindlin

616
2
7
25

2

@mailmindlin: Can you explain this answer better? Why does JSON.parse work here? – Engineer2021 Jul 24 '14 at 20:24
It doesn't work here, which is why this answer is getting down voted – Greg Burghardt Jul 24 '14 at 20:40

parse http response content string

3 Answers3