JSON data array in req.body

Question

So I am trying to pass json data to my req.body

The data looks like this:

answers = ["A","B"]; //This is an array that will be added to the JSON Object

var Student_Answers = { //This is the JSON object
   Answers: answers,
   matricNumber: matric
};

This is the post request:

$.ajax({
      type: "POST",
      url: `/exam/${matric2}`,
      dataType: "json",
      data: Student_Answers,
      success: function(data) {
        console.log("data received: ", data);
      }
    });

So the data got passed to the req.body successfully but my problem is how the data looks like in the req.body output, when I logged the req.body it looks like this:

 {
  'Answers[]': [ 'A', 'B' ],
  matricNumber: '88/2386'
}

But what I am expecting

 {
  Answers: [ 'A', 'B' ],
  matricNumber: '88/2386'
}

Can someone explain to me why the answers array is viewed that way in the req.body ('Answers[]': [ 'A', 'B' ]).it is messing up my saving the data to mongodb.

There's no such thing as a "JSON Object"

Andreas
– Andreas

2019-12-24 09:47:44 +00:00
Commented Dec 24, 2019 at 9:47 — Andreas
– Andreas, Commented Dec 24, 2019 at 9:47

T.J. Crowder · Accepted Answer · 2019-12-24 10:05:42Z

3

dataType tells jQuery what kind of data you're expecting back in the response. To tell jQuery what kind of data you're sending in the request, set contentType. (And yes, it is confusing that data is the data to send, but dataType is the type of response you expect. API fail. 😊 ) You also need to stringify it yourself, jQuery won't do it for you:

$.ajax({
  type: "POST",
  url: `/exam/${matric2}`,
  contentType: "application/json",       // <===========
  data: JSON.stringify(Student_Answers), // <===========
  success: function(data) {
    console.log("data received: ", data);
  }
});

edited Dec 24, 2019 at 10:05

answered Dec 24, 2019 at 9:43

T.J. Crowder

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4 Comments

leonard ikeh Over a year ago

when i do that it just passes { } to the req.body

T.J. Crowder Over a year ago

@leonardikeh - The above will definitely pass JSON for Student_Answers to the server. You probably need to reseach body parsing on Express (it's not automatic, see the ``body-parser` package](npmjs.com/package/body-parser)). But your question was about the client side of this; once you've had a go at the server side of it, if you're still stuck after doing your research, etc., post a question showing an minimal reproducible example of your server-side handling of the JSON and we can help.

leonard ikeh Over a year ago

thank you very much, this helped a lot [link](npmjs.com/package/body-parser), i was using urlencodedParser instead of jsonParser to parse the data.

T.J. Crowder Over a year ago

@leonardikeh - Nice one solving it! :-)

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