Axios post request.body is empty object - node.js

Question

I am trying to post data from my react. Backend - express.
Here is backend code:
var express = require('express');
var app = express();
var bodyParser = require("body-parser");
var methodOverride = require("method-override");
var mongoose = require("mongoose");
var expressSanitizer = require("express-sanitizer");
mongoose.connect("mongodb://localhost/blog-react");
//app config
app.set("view engine", "ejs");
app.use(express.static("public"));
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({extended: true}));
//must be after parser
app.use(expressSanitizer());
app.use(methodOverride("_method"));
//schema config
var blogSchema = new mongoose.Schema({
title: String,
image: String,
body: String,
//it should be date. With default value now.
created: {
type: Date, default: Date.now
}
});
var Blog = mongoose.model("Blog", blogSchema);
function handle500(response, error){
console.log(error.stack);
response.status(500);
response.json({error: "error: internal server error"});
}
app.post("/api/blogs", function(request, response){
var blog = {
title: request.sanitize(request.body.title),
image: request.sanitize(request.body.image),
body: request.sanitize(request.body.body)
};
console.log(request.body);
Blog.create(blog, function(error, newBlog){
if(error){
console.log("inside post handler ERROR")
handle500(response, error);
}
else{
console.log("inside post handler OK")
response.json({status: "success"});
}
});
});
React code:
var requestUrl = "/api/blogs";
var blog = {
title: "a",
image: "b",
body: "c"
}
axios.post(requestUrl, blog)
.then(function(response){
console.log("success",response.data)
})
.catch(function(response){
console.log("error", response);
});
When I post data via axios - request.body is always {}
But if I post data via regular form - all is correct - request.body contains all expected data.
What am I doing wrong with axios?

Answer 1

You are missing one middleware, bodyParser.json(). Add it to your configuration.
mongoose.connect("mongodb://localhost/blog-react");
app.set("view engine", "ejs");
app.use(express.static("public"));
app.use(bodyParser.json()); // <--- Here
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({extended: true}));

Answer 2

For people using Express>=4.16, bodyParser has been changed to the following:
app.use(express.json());

Answer 3

For me the issue was valid JSON format including double quotes on the variables.
This did not work
const res = await axios.post(serverPath + "/user/login", {
email: email,
password: password,
});
This DID work (with double quotes around email and password)
const res = await axios.post(serverPath + "/user/login", {
"email": email,
"password": password,
});

Answer 4

It looks like you only have two points left to make it work :
one : the http method should be set to POST instead of GET since you want to send something.
two : you can then add the http header (like what you did with the authorization header) Content-Type: 'application/json`
On the back-end don't forget to use some kind of body parser utility package like this one : body-parser and set it up with your app.
I suppose your server is using express, here is how you will do it with express :
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
const bodyParser = require('body-parser')
const jsonParser = bodyParser.json();
app.use(jsonParser); // use it globally
app.get('your_route', jsonParser, otherMiddleware, (req, res) => ...); // use it for specific routes
/* ... rest of your code */