How to force parse request body as plain text instead of json in Express?

In express 4.x you can use the text parser from bodyParserhttps://www.npmjs.org/package/body-parser

just add in app.js

app.use(bodyParser.text());

Also in the desired route

router.all('/',function(req,res){    console.log(req.body);})

By default bodyParser.text() handles only text/plain. Change the type options to include */json or */*.

app.use('/some/route', bodyParser.text({type: '*/*'}), function(req, res) {  var text = req.body; // I expect text to be a string but it is a JSON});//or more generally:app.use(bodyParser.text({type:"*/*"}));

You can find the docs here

If you remove the use of the bodyParser() middleware, it should be text. You can view the bodyParser docs for more info: http://www.senchalabs.org/connect/middleware-bodyParser.html

Remove this line:

app.use(express.bodyParser());

EDIT:

Looks like you're right. You can create your own rawBody middleware in the meantime. However, you still need to disable the bodyParser(). Note: req.body will still be undefined.

Here is a demo:

app.js

var express = require('express')  , http = require('http')  , path = require('path')  , util = require('util');var app = express();function rawBody(req, res, next) {  req.setEncoding('utf8');  req.rawBody = '';  req.on('data', function(chunk) {    req.rawBody += chunk;  });  req.on('end', function(){    next();  });}app.configure(function(){  app.set('port', process.env.PORT || 3000);  app.use(rawBody);  //app.use(express.bodyParser());  app.use(express.methodOverride());  app.use(app.router);});app.post('/test', function(req, res) {  console.log(req.is('text/*'));  console.log(req.is('json'));  console.log('RB: ' + req.rawBody);  console.log('B: ' + JSON.stringify(req.body));  res.send('got it');});http.createServer(app).listen(app.get('port'), function(){  console.log("Express server listening on port " + app.get('port'));});

test.js

var request = require('request');request({  method: 'POST',  uri: 'http://localhost:3000/test',  body: {'msg': 'secret'},  json: true}, function (error, response, body) {  console.log('code: '+ response.statusCode);  console.log(body);})

Hope this helps.