Unable to send object through XHTTP Request from Client Side JS to NodeJS

Question

I have a function sending an object to NodeJS.

function addRequest(request_item){
    var request = new XMLHttpRequest;
    request.open("GET", "http://localhost:3000/add_register_request"+"?request_item="+request_item)
    request.send(request_item);
    console.log("Sent");
    document.location.reload(true);
};

request_item is the object.

app.get('/add_register_request', function(req,res){
    console.log("ADDDD")
    var request = req.query.request_item
    console.log(`SQL is ${request}`) //This gives {object Object}
})

JSON.stringify(request) simply returns '{object Object}'. The only difference is it is now in quotes.

How can I access the object in my NodeJS as well? Thanks in advance!

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 15 '19 at 06:14

If request_item is an object and you concatenate it to a string, it will turn into the string object Object you're receiving and seeing in the /add_register_request endpoint.

const request_item = { foo: 'bar' };

const request_string = "http://localhost:3000/add_register_request"+"?request_item=" + request_item;

console.log(request_string);

If you're trying to send data to the back end in order to save it to some database or something of the sort, you should use the POST verb instead of GET and send the data inside the body of the request and not as a param.

Also, i think you may have forgotten the parenthesis when initializing new XMLHttpRequest. I think it should be new XMLHttpRequest()

Can you please send the code for both the client side and the NodeJS? — VoidProgrammer, Aug 15 '19 at 06:55
Well that'd be kinda hard because i don't have the rest of your code though [this site](https://hub.packtpub.com/how-use-xmlhttprequests-send-post-server/) seems to have a good example on how to do it. — deafening_roar, Aug 15 '19 at 07:09

Laurentiu Turcu · Answer 2 · 2019-08-15T06:31:47.527

1

Query variables accept strings and not Objects. If you want to pass a whole js object, you might encode it to JSON and then further encode it to base64. Another strategy might be to convert every request_item attribute to a query. Or you might want to use another HTTP method that contains a body to send the object into.

function addRequest(request_item){
    var request = new XMLHttpRequest;
    request.open(
        "GET", 
        "http://localhost:3000/add_register_request"
            +"?request_item_value_1="+request_item.value_1
            +"&request_item_value_2="+request_item.value_2
    )
    request.send(request_item);
    console.log("Sent");
    document.location.reload(true);
};

then in your server

app.get('/add_register_request', function(req,res){
    console.log("ADDDD")
    var request = {
        value_1: req.query.request_item_value_1,
        value_2: req.query.request_item_value_2,
    }
    console.log(`SQL is ${request}`) //This gives {object Object}
})

Where request_item.value_1 and request_item.value_1 are strings or values that can be concatenated to strings

edited Aug 15 '19 at 06:31

answered Aug 15 '19 at 06:16

Laurentiu Turcu

140
6

I am sorry, but could you please send the code for this? I have no idea how to do this. – VoidProgrammer Aug 15 '19 at 06:25
The thing is, the number of properties in the object or their names is not always the same. Sometimes it has a property, other times it has a different property. – VoidProgrammer Aug 15 '19 at 06:35
[Here](https://stackoverflow.com/questions/1714786/query-string-encoding-of-a-javascript-object) you can find an answer with a function on how to do that programmatically – Laurentiu Turcu Aug 15 '19 at 06:38
It is returning only the first property in my NodeJS – VoidProgrammer Aug 15 '19 at 06:52

Unable to send object through XHTTP Request from Client Side JS to NodeJS

2 Answers2