node.js - How to force parse request body as plain text instead of json in Express?

Question

I am using nodejs + Express (v3) like this:

app.use(express.bodyParser());
app.route('/some/route', function(req, res) {
  var text = req.body; // I expect text to be a string but it is a JSON
});

I checked the request headers and the content-type is missing. Even if "Content-Type" is "text/plain" it is parsing as a JSON it seems. Is there anyway to tell the middleware to always parse the body as a plain text string instead of json? Earlier versions of req used to have req.rawBody that would get around this issue but now it does not anymore. What is the easiest way to force parse body as plain text/string in Express?

question from:https://stackoverflow.com/questions/12345166/how-to-force-parse-request-body-as-plain-text-instead-of-json-in-express

Answer 1

If you remove the use of the bodyParser() middleware, it should be text. You can view the bodyParser docs for more info: http://www.senchalabs.org/connect/middleware-bodyParser.html

Remove this line:

app.use(express.bodyParser());

EDIT:

Looks like you're right. You can create your own rawBody middleware in the meantime. However, you still need to disable the bodyParser(). Note: req.body will still be undefined.

Here is a demo:

app.js

var express = require('express')
  , http = require('http')
  , path = require('path')
  , util = require('util');

var app = express();

function rawBody(req, res, next) {
  req.setEncoding('utf8');
  req.rawBody = '';
  req.on('data', function(chunk) {
    req.rawBody += chunk;
  });
  req.on('end', function(){
    next();
  });
}

app.configure(function(){
  app.set('port', process.env.PORT || 3000);
  app.use(rawBody);
  //app.use(express.bodyParser());
  app.use(express.methodOverride());
  app.use(app.router);
});

app.post('/test', function(req, res) {
  console.log(req.is('text/*'));
  console.log(req.is('json'));
  console.log('RB: ' + req.rawBody);
  console.log('B: ' + JSON.stringify(req.body));
  res.send('got it');
});

http.createServer(app).listen(app.get('port'), function(){
  console.log("Express server listening on port " + app.get('port'));
});

test.js

var request = require('request');

request({
  method: 'POST',
  uri: 'http://localhost:3000/test',
  body: {'msg': 'secret'},
  json: true
}, function (error, response, body) {
  console.log('code: '+ response.statusCode);
  console.log(body);
})

Hope this helps.