Question

I’m looking for how to upload files using only Node.js. Every tutorial or example I got off Google uses formidable or express. But I’d like an example that isn’t using any libraries.

When I upload a file, I get this as the request data:

{
    post: {
        '------WebKitFormBoundarySUszotMiE1sXRapA\r\nContent-Disposition: form-data; name': '"file"; filename="img not found.png"\r\nContent-Type: image/png\r\n\r\n�PNG\r\n\u001a\n\u0000\u0000\u0000\rIHDR\u0000\u0000\u0000\u0012\u0000\u0000\u0000\u0014\b\u0002\u0000\u0000\u0000\u000f��\u001d\u0000\u0000\u0000\u0019tEXtSoftware\u0000Adobe ImageReadyq�e<\u0000\u0000\u0003$iTXtXML:com.adobe.xmp\u0000\u0000\u0000\u0000\u0000<?xpacket begin="" id="W5M0MpCehiHzreSzNTczkc9d"?> <x:xmpmeta xmlns:x="adobe:ns:meta/" x:xmptk="Adobe XMP Core 5.3-c011 66.145661, 2012/02/06-14:56:27        "> <rdf:RDF xmlns:rdf="http://www.w3.org/1999/02/22-rdf-syntax-ns#"> <rdf:Description rdf:about="" xmlns:xmp="http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/" xmlns:xmpMM="http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/mm/" xmlns:stRef="http://ns.adobe.com/xap/1.0/sType/ResourceRef#" xmp:CreatorTool="Adobe Photoshop CS6 (Macintosh)" xmpMM:InstanceID="xmp.iid:51B0B079D16D11E1800BF631A3922565" xmpMM:DocumentID="xmp.did:51B0B07AD16D11E1800BF631A3922565"> <xmpMM:DerivedFrom stRef:instanceID="xmp.iid:51B0B077D16D11E1800BF631A3922565" stRef:documentID="xmp.did:51B0B078D16D11E1800BF631A3922565"/> </rdf:Description> </rdf:RDF> </x:xmpmeta> <?xpacket end="r"?>�\u0003�\u0006\u0000\u0000\u0000�IDATxڔ�\u0001\u000e� \b��y/��z2�d=�E��[�\u001c�>�\u001f\f����Ez\u0011�\u0013�{�//�VJ\u0011���a\u001b}\u0015d\u0014ѭ�RJD�*�͆\r�QI\u0013\u001b�y(K�s��$GI���\u0004�5Z\u0001�H\u0013k#E��;)�\r ½\u0017XU�6X[(箒\u001c�\u001c�\u0014��4`',
        'Ù^�a���$�#': '',
        'AJ\u0012���\u0006�\r\u0010\u001aR�N�\u000b\u0013���`T��k�@�V�ߏ�}��\'�\u0000\u0017gp��\u0002��\u0000\u0000\u0000\u0000IEND�B`�\r\n------WebKitFormBoundarySUszotMiE1sXRapA--\r\n': ''
    }
}

When uploading a simple image. I can see that all the data is received. But I just have no clue about how to handle it.

Any idea, or suggestion is welcome.

Thanks!

Answer 1

The simplest answer is of course to just use Express/Connect/Formidable (from most abstract to most direct solution).

You can also do this yourself by checking out the source of:

• Connect’s bodyParser, which uses:
• Connect’s multipart.js, which uses qs and formidable

I have seen no other direct implementation that parses request bodies, and file uploads. So your option is to go read the source and recreate these, or just use them.