req.body value undefined for form field value set by javascript function - node.js

Question

I am building a node.js,express.js and passport.js app. Once logged into the profile I ask the user to click a button “Get Location” to get the users location.
Profile.ejs
<form action="/testform" method="post" >
<div class="form-group">
<input type="text" class="form-control" id="latVal" placeholder="latitude">
<input type="text" class="form-control" id="longVal" placeholder="longitude">
</div>
<button type = "submit" class="btn btn-warning btn-sm">Save</button>
</form>
<button type = "submit" class="btn btn-warning btn-sm" onclick="getLocation()">Get Location</button>
onclick the getLocation() function is called which is located in mapCall.js
function getLocation()
…
//call to showLocation()
}
function showLocation(position) {
…
document.getElementById("latVal").value = latitude;
document.getElementById("longVal").value = longitude;
}
showLocation() sets the values in the form to the latitude (id="latVal") and longitude (id="longVal") returned from the API call. The values appear in the form field. From here I want to save these values to the users profile data in MongoDB which I try to achieve in routes.js by click of the “Save” button which triggers the function below
app.post('/testform', isLoggedIn, function(req, res) {
user.findById(req.user.id, function(err,user) {
if(!user) {
req.flash('error', 'No accound found');
return res.redirect('/profile');
}
user.location.latitude = req.body.latVal;
user.location.longitude = req.body.longVal;
user.save(function(err){
res.redirect('/profile');
});
});
});
When I console.log req.body.latVal and req.body.longVal the value for these variables is undefined. Nothing is saved in the db.
In server.js I have
var bodyParser = require('body-parser');
app.use(bodyParser());
Upon looking into proposed solutions to req.body returning undefined I tried
app.use(bodyParser.json());
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended: false }));
I didn’t think adding the two lines above would work because the value returned by the API is not in JSON format. This did not work. I checked the typeof for latitude and longitude and it is a number. I am not sure why req.body is not picking up the value.
My initial guess was that app.post tries to read the value before the API can return a value in which case req.body.latVal would read an empty field. I added the save button to test that theory which also proved wrong.
The closest thing I found to my issue is this which was never resolved.
Any guidance is highly appreciated or perhaps even a better way to accomplish this will be great. The reason I have the form fields populate is because I couldn't think of another way to send the values from the frontend to the backend for saving.

Answer 1

Add the name attribute to your inputs.
<input type="text" class="form-control" id="latVal" placeholder="latitude" name="latVal">
<input type="text" class="form-control" id="longVal" placeholder="longitude" name="longVal">
EDIT: (from the comment)
You can do an AJAX call to your server after the getLocation() call.
function getLocation() {
///you get the lat and long
showLocation(position)
saveLocation(latitude, longitude)
.then(function(resp){
//do something with resp
})
}
function saveLocation(latitude, longitude) {
//we have native fetch in newer browsers, so
return fetch("/testform", {
method: "POST",
headers: {
"Content-Type": "application/json; charset=utf-8", //if this doesn't work use the below one
// "Content-Type": "application/x-www-form-urlencoded",
},
body: JSON.stringify({latitude,longitude}), // body data type must match "Content-Type" header
})
.then(response => response.json());
}
This is just an outline of what you can do. Extend this code to your needs.

Answer 2

You are correct in most parts ,You just have to replace ID with name.that is the only way nodejs will be able to locate to your input field