Axios Http client - How to construct Http Post url with form params

Question

I am trying to create a postHTTP request with some form parameters that are to be set. I am using the axios with node server. I already have a java code implementation of constructing a url as given below:

JAVA CODE:

HttpPost post = new HttpPost(UriBuilder.fromUri (getProperty("authServerUrl"))
            .path(TOKEN_ACCESS_PATH).build(getProperty("realm")));

List<NameValuePair> formParams = new ArrayList<NameValuePair>();

formParams.add(new NameValuePair("username",getProperty ("username")));
formParams.add(new NameValuePair("password",getProperty ("password")));
formParams.add(new NameValuePair("client_id, "user-client"));

I am trying to do the same thing in axios.

AXIOS IMPLEMENTATION:

axios.post(authServerUrl +token_access_path,
        {
                username: 'abcd', //gave the values directly for testing
                password: '1235!',
                client_id: 'user-client'
        }).then(function(response) {
            console.log(response); //no output rendered
        }

Is the approach to set these form params on the post request correct?

Answer 1

You have to do the following:

var querystring = require('querystring');
//...
axios.post(authServerUrl + token_access_path,
    querystring.stringify({
            username: 'abcd', //gave the values directly for testing
            password: '1235!',
            client_id: 'user-client'
    }), {
      headers: { 
        "Content-Type": "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
      }
    }).then(function(response) {
        console.log(response);
    });

Answer 2

If your target runtime supports it, Axios is able to accept a URLSearchParams instance which will also set the appropriate Content-type header to application/x-www-form-urlencoded

axios.post(authServerUrl + token_access_path, new URLSearchParams({
  username: 'abcd', //gave the values directly for testing
  password: '1235!',
  client_id: 'user-client'
}))

---

The same goes for the fetch API

fetch(url, {
  method: "POST",
  body: new URLSearchParams({
    your: "object",
    props: "go here"
  })
})

Answer 3

Why pull in another library or module to do something so simple with pure vanilla JavaScript? It's really one line of JS to produce the desired data to submit in your POST request.

// es6 example

const params = {
  format: 'json',
  option: 'value'
};

const data = Object.keys(params)
  .map((key) => `${key}=${encodeURIComponent(params[key])}`)
  .join('&');

console.log(data);
// => format=json&option=value

const options = {
  method: 'POST',
  headers: { 'content-type': 'application/x-www-form-urlencoded' },
  data,
  url: 'https://whatever.com/api',
};

const response = await axios(options);  // wrap in async function
console.log(response);