Parsing complex json structure

[expressjs]

Parsing complex json structure

[dougwilson]

That works just fine for me. Can you provide some more details, like what isn't working, or what the error is, or what the parse looks like to you?

[charyorde]

console.log(req.body) simply returns {}.
The full route looks like this:

var router = express.Router();
var validator = require('express-validator');
router.use(validator());

var jsonParser = bodyParser.json({ type: 'application/*+json' } );

router.post('/create-account', jsonParser, function(req, res) {
  console.log(req.body); // This returns {}
  if (!req.body) return res.sendStatus(400);

  req.checkBody('userName', 'required').notEmpty();
  req.checkBody('name', 'required').notEmpty();

  var errors = req.validationErrors();
  if (errors) {
    res.status(400).send('There have been validation errors: ' + util.inspect(errors));
    return;
  }

I know body-parser has nothing to do with validation(used express-validator), but since you asked for details, on validation, the json fields couldn't be validated because req.body returns empty.

There have been validation errors: [ { param: 'userName', msg: 'required', value: undefined }, { param: 'name', msg: 'required', value: undefined }]

[dougwilson]

Gotcha. It would seem the reason req.body = {} for your case is because of one of two reasons (both of which I cannot confirm because will app code wasn't pasted):

1. The request's content-type is not application/stuff+json; if it is just application/json then your jsonParser will ignore it
2. The jsonParser you have there will only ever work as long as something prior to your code is not reading the bdoy, as in perhaps somewhere outside what you posted there is a app.use(bodyParser) or similar?

The following code works perfectly fine for me:

var app = express();
var router = express.Router();

var jsonParser = bodyParser.json({ type: 'application/*+json' } );

router.post('/create-account', jsonParser, function(req, res) {
  console.log(req.body);
});

app.use(router);
app.listen(3000);

[charyorde]

Thanks

I don't have app.use(bodyParser()) anywhere in my code. Moreso, I'm reading the json data from a file like so:

curl -v -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d @/tmp/create-account.json http://localhost:3000/auth/create-account

Could it be that there's something wrong with how the request is constructed? What's your request content-type?

[dougwilson]

Could it be that there's something wrong with how the request is constructed?

Ah. Your cURL command has the wrong content type, as application/json does not match application/*+json. You need to change one or the other. If you want to use application/json, then set that in your code, otherwise send a content-type in cURL that matches application/*+json.

What's your request content-type?

I used application/stuff+json as stated above.

[charyorde]

Okay. I simply changed the request to curl -v -d @/tmp/create-account.json http://localhost:3000/auth/create-account and code as:

var urlencodedParser = bodyParser.urlencoded({extended: false } );

router.post('/create-account', urlencodedParser, function(req, res) {
  console.log(req.body);
});

[charyorde]

Well, just for enhancement purposes for the library, a request like so:
curl -v -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d @/tmp/create-account.json http://localhost:3000/auth/create-account and code like so:

var jsonParser = bodyParser.json({ type: 'application/json' } );
router.post('/create-account', jsonParser, function(req, res) { 
  console.log(req.body)
});

gives this error:

SyntaxError: Unexpected token }
    at Object.parse (native)
    at parse (/Users/osx/projects/nodescripts/useraccountservice/node_modules/body-parser/lib/types/json.js:84:17)
    at /Users/osx/projects/nodescripts/useraccountservice/node_modules/body-parser/lib/read.js:102:18
    at IncomingMessage.onEnd (/Users/osx/projects/nodescripts/useraccountservice/node_modules/body-parser/node_modules/raw-body/index.js:136:7)
    at IncomingMessage.g (events.js:180:16)
    at IncomingMessage.emit (events.js:92:17)
    at _stream_readable.js:943:16
    at process._tickCallback (node.js:419:13)

[dougwilson]

It's because you're sending invalid JSON.

[dougwilson]

Feel fee to post the contents of /tmp/create-account.json and I can point out where the JSON is invalid (you can always check yourself by running the file through JSON.parse, part of core JavaScript.

[charyorde]

{
    "schemas":["urn:scim:schemas:core:1.0"],
    "userName":"bjensen",
    "name":{
        "formatted":"Ms. Barbara J Jensen III",
        "familyName":"Jensen",
        "givenName":"Barbara"
    },
    "emails":[{
        "type":"home",
        "value":"[email protected]"
    }],
}

[dougwilson]

That very last trailing comma is illegal is JSON.

[charyorde]

Awesome. Merci!