Express.js : POST data as KEY of a req.body object instead of VALUE of req.body?

Question

from the client I'm doing :

$.ajax({
        url: '/create',
        type: 'POST',
        data: JSON.stringify({
            theme: "somevalue",
            snippet: {
                name: "somename",
                content: "somevalue"
            }
        }), 
        complete: function (response)
        {

        }
    });

on the server ( node.js/express.js ) I'm doing :

var app = express();
app.use(cookieParser());
app.use(bodyParser.json());
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({extended: true}));
.......
... 
app.post('/create', function (req, res)
{
   var dataReceived = req.body;
});

I expected the value of dataReceived to be :

{
   "theme" : "somevalue",
   "snippet" : {
     "name": "somename",
     "content" : "somevalue"
   } 
}

Instead the value of dataReceived was :

{ 
 '{"theme":"somevalue","snippet":"name":"somename","content":"somevalue"}}': '' 
}

This is really weird and I can't find what I'm doing wrong. Any ideas?

from the BodyParser module documentation :

bodyParser.urlencoded(options)

Returns middleware that only parses urlencoded bodies. This parser accepts only UTF-8 encoding of the body and supports automatic inflation of gzip and deflate encodings.

A new body object containing the parsed data is populated on the request object after the middleware (i.e. req.body). This object will contain key-value pairs, where the value can be a string or array (when extended is false), or any type (when extended is true).

Is this related to my problem ?

you dont need to JSON.stringify the request on the frontend. — Safari, Oct 18 '15 at 18:53

score 4 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 18 '15 at 18:54

4

Remove Stringify in your client side

$.ajax({
        url: '/create',
        type: 'POST',
        data: {
            theme: "somevalue",
            snippet: {
                name: "somename",
                content: "somevalue"
            }
        }, 
        complete: function (response)
        {

        }
    });

or parse it again in server side

app.post('/create', function (req, res)
{
   var dataReceived = JSON.parse(req.body);
});

answered Oct 18 '15 at 18:54

Samundra Khatri

997
1
9
18

You were right!. I still don't know when my data should be stringified and when it shouldn't be.. anyway.. thanks! – Kawd Oct 18 '15 at 19:02
i think if you are doing javascript on both client and server then no need of stringify ! – Samundra Khatri Oct 18 '15 at 19:04

score 2 · Answer 2 · answered Nov 02 '18 at 13:36

2

Set this content-type on client side ajax call if you are going to use JSON.stringify:

contentType: "application/json"

answered Nov 02 '18 at 13:36

Amith

730
6
22

score 1 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 15 '18 at 06:03

1

just remove this content type from client request header

 'Content-Type':'application/x-www-form-urlencoded'

answered Mar 15 '18 at 06:03

Hisham

1,279
1
17
23

score 0 · Answer 4 · answered Sep 06 '18 at 09:05

0

You can get the KEY using the VALUE like so:

function getKeyByValue(object, value) {
  return Object.keys(object).find(key => object[key] === value);
}

answered Sep 06 '18 at 09:05

Uche Azinge

682
1
8
14

Express.js : POST data as KEY of a req.body object instead of VALUE of req.body?

4 Answers4

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