How do you extract POST data in Node.js?

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

For those using raw binary POST upload without encoding overhead you can use:

client:

var xhr = new XMLHttpRequest();
xhr.open("POST", "/api/upload", true);
var blob = new Uint8Array([65,72,79,74]); // or e.g. recorder.getBlob()
xhr.send(blob);

server:

var express = require('express');
var router = express.Router();
var fs = require('fs');

router.use (function(req, res, next) {
  var data='';
  req.setEncoding('binary');
  req.on('data', function(chunk) {
    data += chunk;
  });

  req.on('end', function() {
    req.body = data;
    next();
  });
});

router.post('/api/upload', function(req, res, next) {
  fs.writeFile("binaryFile.png", req.body, 'binary', function(err) {
    res.send("Binary POST successful!");
  });
});

Answer 2

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>

JavaScript:

app.use(express.bodyParser());

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

UPDATED on 1/June/2016:

Method above is deprecated use now:

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)
});

Answer 3

Here's a very simple no-framework wrapper based on the other answers and articles posted in here:

var http = require('http');
var querystring = require('querystring');

function processPost(request, response, callback) {
    var queryData = "";
    if(typeof callback !== 'function') return null;

    if(request.method == 'POST') {
        request.on('data', function(data) {
            queryData += data;
            if(queryData.length > 1e6) {
                queryData = "";
                response.writeHead(413, {'Content-Type': 'text/plain'}).end();
                request.connection.destroy();
            }
        });

        request.on('end', function() {
            request.post = querystring.parse(queryData);
            callback();
        });

    } else {
        response.writeHead(405, {'Content-Type': 'text/plain'});
        response.end();
    }
}

Usage example:

http.createServer(function(request, response) {
    if(request.method == 'POST') {
        processPost(request, response, function() {
            console.log(request.post);
            // Use request.post here

            response.writeHead(200, "OK", {'Content-Type': 'text/plain'});
            response.end();
        });
    } else {
        response.writeHead(200, "OK", {'Content-Type': 'text/plain'});
        response.end();
    }

}).listen(8000);

Answer 4

Limit POST size avoid flood your node app. There is a great raw-body module, suitable both for express and connect, that can help you limit request by size and length.

Answer 5

You can use the querystring module:

var qs = require('querystring');

function (request, response) {
    if (request.method == 'POST') {
        var body = '';

        request.on('data', function (data) {
            body += data;

            // Too much POST data, kill the connection!
            // 1e6 === 1 * Math.pow(10, 6) === 1 * 1000000 ~~~ 1MB
            if (body.length > 1e6)
                request.connection.destroy();
        });

        request.on('end', function () {
            var post = qs.parse(body);
            // use post['blah'], etc.
        });
    }
}

Now, for example, if you have an input field with name age, you could access it using the variable post:

console.log(post.age);

Answer 6

For anyone wondering how to do this trivial task without installing a web framework I managed to plop this together. Hardly production ready but it seems to work.

function handler(req, res) {
    var POST = {};
    if (req.method == 'POST') {
        req.on('data', function(data) {
            data = data.toString();
            data = data.split('&');
            for (var i = 0; i < data.length; i++) {
                var _data = data[i].split("=");
                POST[_data[0]] = _data[1];
            }
            console.log(POST);
        })
    }
}