Node.js - How to send data from html to express

Question

this is form example in html:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
<meta charset="utf-8" />
<title>CSS3 Contact Form</title>
</head>
<body>
<div id="contact">
    <h1>Send an email</h1>
    <form action="/myaction" method="post">
        <fieldset>
            <label for="name">Name:</label>
            <input type="text" id="name" name="name" placeholder="Enter your full name" />

            <label for="email">Email:</label>
            <input type="email" id="email" placeholder="Enter your email address" />

            <label for="message">Message:</label>
            <textarea id="message" placeholder="What's on your mind?"></textarea>

            <input type="submit" value="Send message" />

        </fieldset>
    </form>
</div>
</body>
</html>

and this is node.js function that run on the server:

var sys = require('sys'),
    http = require('http');
    http.createServer(function (req, res) {
            switch (req.url) 
                case '/myaction':
                        res.end(?????);
                    break;
            }
    }).listen(8080);
sys.puts('Server running at http://127.0.0.1:8080/');

I have 2 questions:

How can I call myaction function in the node.js from the html page? Because the html file runs on port 80 and node.js on 8080 (when I try to move the node.js to port 80 it writes "// Unhandled 'error' event")
In the node.js function where I put "?????" how can I get data from the html form. When I type req.html.body.name I don't get the data...

Have you thought about using express? It has a built in handler for forms. I use it with great success posting forms. — Stan Cromlish, Mar 22 '13 at 11:26

score 101 · Accepted Answer · edited Jun 18 '15 at 20:20

Using http.createServer is very low-level and really not useful for creating web applications as-is.

A good framework to use on top of it is Express, and I would seriously suggest using it. You can install it using npm install express.

When you have, you can create a basic application to handle your form:

var express = require('express');
var bodyParser = require('body-parser');
var app     = express();

//Note that in version 4 of express, express.bodyParser() was
//deprecated in favor of a separate 'body-parser' module.
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended: true })); 

//app.use(express.bodyParser());

app.post('/myaction', function(req, res) {
  res.send('You sent the name "' + req.body.name + '".');
});

app.listen(8080, function() {
  console.log('Server running at http://127.0.0.1:8080/');
});

You can make your form point to it using:

<form action="http://127.0.0.1:8080/myaction" method="post">

The reason you can't run Node on port 80 is because there's already a process running on that port (which is serving your index.html). You could use Express to also serve static content, like index.html, using the express.static middleware.

@chotesah that's not related to the code posted here, but an issue in your app. — robertklep, Aug 20 '15 at 12:22

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited Oct 06 '18 at 19:32

I'd like to expand on Obertklep's answer. In his example it is an NPM module called body-parser which is doing most of the work. Where he puts req.body.name, I believe he/she is using body-parser to get the contents of the name attribute(s) received when the form is submitted.

If you do not want to use Express, use querystring which is a built-in Node module. See the answers in the link below for an example of how to use querystring.

It might help to look at this answer, which is very similar to your quest.

Node.js - How to send data from html to express

2 Answers2

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