Parse XML body from HTTP Push request with Express & Node.js, using body-parser-xml-CodePudding

I need to process a HTTP push request using Node.js express.

The request is sending the body in XML format, that's why I chose the body-parser-xml package for parsing.

My problem is, that the body isn't properly parsed – I guess because the package doesn't recognize the mime type of the transferred body.

The endpoint:

const express = require('express');
const bodyParser = require('body-parser');
require('body-parser-xml')(bodyParser);

const app = express();
const PORT = 8085;

app.use(express.urlencoded({ extended: true }));
app.use(bodyParser.xml({
    limit:'25MB'
}));

app.post('/feed', function (req, res, body) {
    console.log(req.headers);
    console.log(req.body);
    res.status(200).end();
});

The output:

{
  host: 'localhost:8085',
  accept: '*/*',
  'x-meta-feed-type': '1',
  'x-meta-feed-parameters': 'feed params',
  'x-meta-default-filename': 'filename.xml',
  'x-meta-mime-type': 'text/xml',
  'content-length': '63'
  encoding: 'UTF-8',
  connection: 'Keep-Alive'
}
{
  '<data id': '"1234"><name>Test</name><title>Test1234</title></data>'
}

I'm not able to change the request itself (it's external), only the Node.js endpoint.

Any idea how to process the content properly?

Thanks for your help!

CodePudding user response：

The request has apparently been parsed by the

app.use(express.urlencoded({ extended: true }));

middleware, which means that it must have had Content-Type: application/x-www-form-urlencoded. Remove the two app.use lines, because they make "global" body-parsing decisions (for every request), whereas you need a special treatment only for one type of request.

If you instantiate the XML body parser with the "non-standard" (that is, wrong) type, it will parse the content as XML:

app.post('/feed',
  bodyParser.xml({type: "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"}),
  function (req, res) {
    console.log(req.headers);
    console.log(req.body);
    res.status(200).end();
  });