Question

How do you extract form data (form[method="post"]) and file uploads sent from the HTTP POST method in Node.js?

I’ve read the documentation, googled and found nothing.

function (request, response) {
    //request.post????
}

Is there a library or a hack?

Answer 1

If you use Express (high-performance, high-class web development for Node.js), you can do this:

HTML:

<form method="post" action="/">
    <input type="text" name="user[name]">
    <input type="text" name="user[email]">
    <input type="submit" value="Submit">
</form>

API client:

fetch('/', {
    method: 'POST',
    headers: {
        'Content-Type': 'application/json'
    },
    body: JSON.stringify({
        user: {
            name: "John",
            email: "[e-mail]"
        }
    })
});

Node.js: (since Express v4.16.0)

// Parse URL-encoded bodies (as sent by HTML forms)
app.use(express.urlencoded());

// Parse JSON bodies (as sent by API clients)
app.use(express.json());

// Access the parse results as request.body
app.post('/', function(request, response){
    console.log(request.body.user.name);
    console.log(request.body.user.email);
});

Node.js: (for Express <4.16.0)

const bodyParser = require("body-parser");

/** bodyParser.urlencoded(options)
 * Parses the text as URL encoded data (which is how browsers tend to send form data from regular forms set to POST)
 * and exposes the resulting object (containing the keys and values) on req.body
 */
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({
    extended: true
}));

/**bodyParser.json(options)
 * Parses the text as JSON and exposes the resulting object on req.body.
 */
app.use(bodyParser.json());

app.post("/", function (req, res) {
    console.log(req.body.user.name)
});