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         


        

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.