How to read POST data with node.js without using express or connect - forms

Question

Edit
Make sure you don't juxtapose the request and response objects. things will be easier if you dont.
I am trying to POST data from a form with two inputs to a specific url node responds to.
Originally I was using the javascript xmlHTTPrequest object to send it. The data was received but node could never read the object I tried sending which was JSON format. Here is what it looked like when I converted it to a string:
{ output: [],
outputEncodings: [],
writable: true,
_last: false,
chunkedEncoding: false,
shouldKeepAlive: true,
useChunkedEncodingByDefault: true,
_hasBody: true,
_trailer: '',
finished: false,
socket:
{ _handle:
{ writeQueueSize: 0,
socket: [Circular],
onread: [Function: onread] },
_pendingWriteReqs: 0,
_flags: 0,
_connectQueueSize: 0,
destroyed: false,
errorEmitted: false,
bytesRead: 8442,
bytesWritten: 1669569,
allowHalfOpen: true,
writable: true,
readable: true,
This was not the full string. I switched over to use an ajax post request instead because I thought serializearray() might create a different format that node could read but it was the same. My server side code is essentially just:
function email(request, response)
form = '';
request.setEncoding("utf8");
request.on('data', function(chunk) {
console.log('data received');
form += chunk.toString();
});
request.on('end', function() {
console.log('done receiving post data');
});
My form looks like this
<form name="email" action="javascript:true;">
<input type="text" name="address" value="Enter your email address" onFocus="this.value=''">
<input class="special" type="text" name="honeypot">
<input type="submit" value="submit">
</form>
If I try parsing with JSON.parse, there is an error caused by unexpected o
If I try parsing with querystring, it returns an empty object
If I try something like console.log(form.address) the output is undefined but should be one of the values i submitted in the form.
my http server would route to /email and this is the function that responds to /email.
I checked and I know the on 'data' event has not expired because my code is set up to notify me of a 'data'event and I can see the event happening. Locally, this code works fine and I can read the data submitted but on the development server it just doesn't work.
I know people will say I should be using connect or express but let's just suppose that was not an option, how could I get node to correctly process this data? The jquery that submits the form is more or less standard. Many thanks!
EDIT:
Sorry, I thought the problem would be fixed as I noticed immediately the posted string was not JSON. Here is the code I am using to send the post.
$(document).ready(function() {
$("#email").submit(function(event) {
event.preventDefault();
var data = $(this).serializeArray();
$.ajax({
type: 'POST',
dataType: 'json',
url: '/email',
data: JSON.stringify(data),
success: function(msg) {
$("#aviso").html(msg);
}
});
});
});
Here is the string the data variable holds:
[
{
"name": "address",
"value": "foo#bar.com"
},
{
"name": "honeypot",
"value": "irobot"
}
]
This is valid JSON as per jsonlint. But still the same error when it reaches the server. Node handles the 'data' event and all is well until I try to parse the string, it causes an error undefined:1 unexpected o.

Answer 1

The data you're sending is not valid JSON, which requires that all object keys are double-quoted.