app.use(express.raw()) not working in Express.js

user_18807217 0
Viewed 120

I am making an Express application that takes in (binary) post data. Here is my code below.

Server-side:

var express = require('express');
var app = express();
var PORT = 3000;

app.use(express.raw());
    
app.post('/', function(req, res) {
    console.log(req.body);
    res.end();
});

app.get('/', function(req, res) {
    res.sendFile(__dirname + '/index.html');
});

app.listen(PORT, function() {
    console.log("Server listening on port", PORT);
});

index.html:

<script>
  fetch("/", {
    method: "POST",
    body: "hello world",
  });
</script>

However, when I run this code, when logging the request body, it logs an empty object. And when I looked at the documentation, it says that the request body will be an empty object if there was no body to parse. But I had a body in the request. What am I doing wrong here?

express node.js javascript
3 Answers

For express.raw() to parse, add "Content-Type": "application/octet-stream" inside headers in your fetch(). Like so:

fetch("/", {
  method: "POST",
  body: "hello world",
  headers: {
    "Content-Type": "application/octet-stream",
  },
});
user_152886410

express.raw() only works if you set your Content-Type header in your fetch to `application/octet stream. So your new fetch method would look like this.

fetch("/", {
    method: "POST",
    body: "hello world",
    headers: {
      "Content-Type": "application/octet-stream"
    }
});

But what if you don't want the content type to be application/octet-stream? In this case, you can specify in the express.raw() options that the content type to parse the body can be any type. How to do this? Replace this:

app.use(express.raw());

With this:

app.use(express.raw({type: '*/*'}));

The type option is the needed content type for body-parser to parse the body, and the */* means that any content type will be accepted.

user_110727090

Use this for your usecase app.use(express.text());

user_144643820
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