How do I parse this HTTP POST request in Express?

I'm building my first node.js site with expressjs.

Part of it is handling notifications from Fitbit to an endpoint on my site, /api/1/fitbit_update, like this one:

POST /api/1/fitbit_update HTTP/1.1
Host: myhost.dk
Content-Type: multipart/form-data; boundary=JGUOAeGT3Fjgjcdk6s35F2mPVVyTdzgR
Content-Length: 374
Connection: keep-alive

--JGUOAeGT3Fjgjcdk6s35F2mPVVyTdzgR
Content-Disposition: form-data; name="updates"; filename="update1353963418000.json"
Content-Type: application/json; charset=UTF-8
Content-Transfer-Encoding: binary

[{"collectionType":"activities","date":"2012-11-26","ownerId":"qw12er23","ownerType":"user","subscriptionId":"112233-activities"}]
--JGUOAeGT3Fjgjcdk6s35F2mPVVyTdzgR--

I need to parse the json object in the body of the HTTP request, but Express cannot help me with that.

Any ideas how to get a hold of the JSON object?

I've seen some middleware examples, but I'm not sure how to actually get to the contents with the req.on('someevent') approach.

req.body returns an empty object {}

So this request is a multipart file upload where the file you are interested in is a JSON document. Check out the express multipart example. You will want to do something like:

  • read the file that connect has saved for you at req.files.updates.path
  • parse that JSON data into an object using JSON.parse

Try req.body in your POST route handler.

Add express.bodyParser()

for older version:

app.express.createServer(
  express.cookieParser(), 
  express.bodyParser(), 
  ..... 
);

for newer version:

server.use(express.bodyParser());

Then you can access body by using req.body

Values ​​sent from form using post method: email and password

app.post('/login', function(req, res){

    /* Get Errors of Validates */
    var errors = [];
    req.onValidationError(function(msg) {
        errors.push(msg);
        //console.log('msg: ' + msg);
        return this;
    });

    /* Validates */
    req.sanitize('email').xss();
    req.sanitize('password').xss();

    req.assert('email', 'Range email').len(6, 40);
    req.assert('password', 'Range password').len(6, 20);

    //*****************************************************
    // Value Send Post "password" --> req.body.password 
    //*****************************************************
    var pass_shasum = crypto.createHash('sha256').update(req.body.password).digest('hex');  

....

Regards.