request.body is empty when issuing POST requests containing JSON body

Question

I've struggling for few hours with this issue and I feel I'm stuck with it. I'm doing the tutorial of NodeJS, ExpressJS and MongoDB. I've built a simple API on ExpressJS. When issuing a cURL POST request containing a JSON body the req.body is empty and therefore I see an error. Hereby some source/details: The cURL request: ``` curl -i http://localhost:3000/wines -X POST -H "Content-Type: application/json" -d "{'name': 'New Wine', 'year': '2009'}" ``` The route: ``` app.post('/wines', wines.addWine); ``` The API method: ``` exports.addWine = function (req, res) { console.log('Req body' + req.body); var wine = req.body; console.log('Adding wine: ' + JSON.stringify(wine)); db.collection('wines', function (err, collection) { collection.insert(wine, {safe:true}, function (err, result) { if (err) { res.send({'error':'An error has occurred'}); } else { console.log('Success: ' + JSON.stringify(result[0])); res.send(result[0]); } }); }); } ``` The following error is thrown: ``` Listening on po…

Accepted Answer

If you ever have problems with a request body in express, the first thing you should check is if the application is configured to use `bodyParser`, i.e.:

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

In this particular case you can check to see if your implementation matches the example.

request.body is empty when issuing POST requests containing JSON body

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