Node.js parsing querystring

Question

I am learning Node.js and try to make a form work without any module like express or body-parser.
I have the below code and I want upon POST request to create an object with the query string and redirect to a "contact-success" page where I could use the data from my object.
The results I keep obtaining is either a 404 error because I am taken to a URL with query string or just firefox loading "forever" Any advice on how to have it work? :)

//we need http to be able to process http requests
const http = require('http')
// we need fs because each http request will ba handled by creating a readstream and piping it to response
// fs will read the file to be piped
const fs = require('fs')
const qs = require('querystring')

const server = http.createServer(function(req, res){
    console.log('Request was made at ' + req.url)
    if(req.url === '/' || req.url === '/home'){
        // home page
        res.writeHead(200, {'Content-type': 'text/html'})
        fs.createReadStream(__dirname + '/html_files/index.html').pipe(res)
    } else if(req.url === '/contact'){
        if (req.method === 'POST'){
            //handling the POST request only IF the request is made
            const body =''
            req.on('data', function(data){
                body += data
            })
            req.on('end', function(){
                const post = querystring.parse(body)
                console.log(post)
                res.writeHead(200, {'Content-type': 'text/html'})
                fs.createReadStream(__dirname + '/html_files/contact-success.html').pipe(res)
            })
        } else {
            res.writeHead(200, {'Content-type': 'text/html'})
            fs.createReadStream(__dirname + '/html_files/contact.html').pipe(res)
        }
    } else if(req.url === '/contact-success'){
        // page to be displayed once the form is submited with POST request
        res.writeHead(200, {'Content-type': 'text/html'})
        fs.createReadStream(__dirname + '/html_files/contact-success.html').pipe(res)
    }
})

// configuring the port and address of the localhost
// I chose 3000 here because another app is on 8000 and sometimes the cache does weird stuff
server.listen(3000, '127.0.0.1')
// just quick console feedback that we're connected on the right port
console.log('Now listening to port 3000')

Have you tried to console.log(body) before const post = querystring.parse(body)? The body is definetely not a query string it's most probably multipart/form-data. You also probably don't understand the difference between body and query string. They are two different thing. The query string has a specific format and is part if the url whereas body of the request can be anything and has nothing to do with url address. — Molda
– Molda, Commented Jul 3, 2020 at 10:51

Quentin · Accepted Answer · 2020-07-03 10:36:26Z

2

Query strings are part of the URL, so your URL matching logic won't work because it doesn't account for the query string.

You need to split the query string and path components of the URL out from req.url before you start matching the URL against /, /home, etc.

answered Jul 3, 2020 at 10:36

Quentin

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Baptiste Vanlitsenburgh · Accepted Answer · 2020-07-05 10:08:37Z

So for info, I used the following method and was able to create an object from the posted data and console.log it:

if(req.method === 'POST'){
            // we state that body is empty
            let body = ''
            // on event 'data' a chunk of data is sent to body and stringified
            req.on('data', chunk => {
                body += chunk.toString()
                //on the end of stream, we parse the body and console,log it
                req.on('end', () => {
                    console.log(parse(body))
                })
            })
            // trying to redirect to contact-successafter posting
            res.writeHead(200, {'Content-type': 'text/html'})
            fs.createReadStream(__dirname + '/html_files/contact-success.html').pipe(res)

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