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JavaScript Build a REST API With Express Completing and Testing the API Test Routes with Postman

Pat Needham
Pat Needham
3,998 Points
Posted by Pat Needham
Pat Needham
3,998 Points

Question json response from get request not including the text field?

I think I followed everything exactly as in the videos so far (probably missed something), but when I make the get request to localhost:3000/questions/{the question id}, everything looks fine, no errors, except the returned json doesn't have a text field.

Here is my code for the get /:qId route: router.get("/:qId", function(req, res) { res.json(req.question); });

And for the router's param method at the top of routes.js: router.param("qId", function(req, res, next, id) { Question.findById(id, function(err, doc) { if (err) return next(err); if(!doc) { err = new Error("Not Found"); err.status = 404; return next(err); } req.question = doc; return next(); }); });

And QuestionSchema inside models.js: var QuestionSchema = new Schema({ text: String, createdAt: {type: Date, default: Date.now}, answers: [AnswerSchema] });

Jonathan Ankiewicz
Jonathan Ankiewicz
17,901 Points

In the video he states you wont get anything back from the get/question/:id

Have you verified the text is in the json object when you submit the post? If it's abscent there then the issue is in your post.

1 Answer

Stephan L
Stephan L
17,821 Points
Stephan L
Stephan L
17,821 Points

I had this same issue. The code you posted should be fine, but what's happening is the property question.text is returning undefined. You need to parse the text you're entering as json, Postman won't do it for you. This question helped get me to the solution:

(http://stackoverflow.com/questions/9177049/express-js-req-body-undefined)

With that information, I downloaded body-parser, since as the answers note, body-parser is no longer bundled with Expressjs, and then required it in my app.js file. Step by step:

  1. npm install body-parser --save
  2. In your app.js file: var bodyParser = require(./body-parser); app.use(bodyParser.json());

Here's the documentation for body-parser: (https://www.npmjs.com/package/body-parser)