Convert JS Object to form data

Question

If you have an object, you can easily create a FormData object and append the names and values from that object to formData.

You haven't posted any code, so it's a general example;

var form_data = new FormData();

for ( var key in item ) {
    form_data.append(key, item[key]);
}

$.ajax({
    url         : 'http://example.com/upload.php',
    data        : form_data,
    processData : false,
    contentType : false,
    type: 'POST'
}).done(function(data){
    // do stuff
});

There are more examples in the documentation on MDN

With ES6 and a more functional programming approach @adeneo's answer could looks like this:

function getFormData(object) {
    const formData = new FormData();
    Object.keys(object).forEach(key => formData.append(key, object[key]));
    return formData;
}

And alternatively using .reduce() and arrow-functions:

const getFormData = object => Object.keys(object).reduce((formData, key) => {
    formData.append(key, object[key]);
    return formData;
}, new FormData());

This function adds all data from object to FormData

ES6 version from @developer033:

function buildFormData(formData, data, parentKey) {
  if (data && typeof data === 'object' && !(data instanceof Date) && !(data instanceof File)) {
    Object.keys(data).forEach(key => {
      buildFormData(formData, data[key], parentKey ? `${parentKey}[${key}]` : key);
    });
  } else {
    const value = data == null ? '' : data;

    formData.append(parentKey, value);
  }
}

function jsonToFormData(data) {
  const formData = new FormData();
  
  buildFormData(formData, data);
  
  return formData;
}

const my_data = {
  num: 1,
  falseBool: false,
  trueBool: true,
  empty: '',
  und: undefined,
  nullable: null,
  date: new Date(),
  name: 'str',
  another_object: {
    name: 'my_name',
    value: 'whatever'
  },
  array: [
    {
      key1: {
        name: 'key1'
      }
    }
  ]
};

jsonToFormData(my_data)

jQuery version:

function appendFormdata(FormData, data, name){
    name = name || '';
    if (typeof data === 'object'){
        $.each(data, function(index, value){
            if (name == ''){
                appendFormdata(FormData, value, index);
            } else {
                appendFormdata(FormData, value, name + '['+index+']');
            }
        })
    } else {
        FormData.append(name, data);
    }
}


var formData = new FormData(),
    your_object = {
        name: 'test object',
        another_object: {
            name: 'and other objects',
            value: 'whatever'
        }
    };
appendFormdata(formData, your_object); 

Try JSON.stringify function as below

var postData = JSON.stringify(item);
var formData = new FormData();
formData.append("postData",postData );

The other answers were incomplete for me. I started from @Vladimir Novopashin answer and modified it. Here are the things, that I needed and bug I found:

• Support for file
• Support for array
• Bug: File inside complex object needs to be added with .prop instead of [prop]. For example, formData.append('photos[0][file]', file) didn't work on google chrome, while formData.append('photos[0].file', file) worked
• Ignore some properties in my object

The following code should work on IE11 and evergreen browsers.

function objectToFormData(obj, rootName, ignoreList) {
    var formData = new FormData();

    function appendFormData(data, root) {
        if (!ignore(root)) {
            root = root || '';
            if (data instanceof File) {
                formData.append(root, data);
            } else if (Array.isArray(data)) {
                for (var i = 0; i < data.length; i++) {
                    appendFormData(data[i], root + '[' + i + ']');
                }
            } else if (typeof data === 'object' && data) {
                for (var key in data) {
                    if (data.hasOwnProperty(key)) {
                        if (root === '') {
                            appendFormData(data[key], key);
                        } else {
                            appendFormData(data[key], root + '.' + key);
                        }
                    }
                }
            } else {
                if (data !== null && typeof data !== 'undefined') {
                    formData.append(root, data);
                }
            }
        }
    }

    function ignore(root){
        return Array.isArray(ignoreList)
            && ignoreList.some(function(x) { return x === root; });
    }

    appendFormData(obj, rootName);

    return formData;
}

I had a scenario where nested JSON had to be serialised in a linear fashion while form data is constructed, since this is how server expects values. So, I wrote a small recursive function which translates the JSON which is like this:

{
   "orderPrice":"11",
   "cardNumber":"************1234",
   "id":"8796191359018",
   "accountHolderName":"Raj Pawan",
   "expiryMonth":"02",
   "expiryYear":"2019",
   "issueNumber":null,
   "billingAddress":{
      "city":"Wonderland",
      "code":"8796682911767",
      "firstname":"Raj Pawan",
      "lastname":"Gumdal",
      "line1":"Addr Line 1",
      "line2":null,
      "state":"US-AS",
      "region":{
         "isocode":"US-AS"
      },
      "zip":"76767-6776"
   }
}

Into something like this:

{
   "orderPrice":"11",
   "cardNumber":"************1234",
   "id":"8796191359018",
   "accountHolderName":"Raj Pawan",
   "expiryMonth":"02",
   "expiryYear":"2019",
   "issueNumber":null,
   "billingAddress.city":"Wonderland",
   "billingAddress.code":"8796682911767",
   "billingAddress.firstname":"Raj Pawan",
   "billingAddress.lastname":"Gumdal",
   "billingAddress.line1":"Addr Line 1",
   "billingAddress.line2":null,
   "billingAddress.state":"US-AS",
   "billingAddress.region.isocode":"US-AS",
   "billingAddress.zip":"76767-6776"
}

The server would accept form data which is in this converted format.

Here is the function:

function jsonToFormData (inJSON, inTestJSON, inFormData, parentKey) {
    // http://stackoverflow.com/a/22783314/260665
    // Raj: Converts any nested JSON to formData.
    var form_data = inFormData || new FormData();
    var testJSON = inTestJSON || {};
    for ( var key in inJSON ) {
        // 1. If it is a recursion, then key has to be constructed like "parent.child" where parent JSON contains a child JSON
        // 2. Perform append data only if the value for key is not a JSON, recurse otherwise!
        var constructedKey = key;
        if (parentKey) {
            constructedKey = parentKey + "." + key;
        }

        var value = inJSON[key];
        if (value && value.constructor === {}.constructor) {
            // This is a JSON, we now need to recurse!
            jsonToFormData (value, testJSON, form_data, constructedKey);
        } else {
            form_data.append(constructedKey, inJSON[key]);
            testJSON[constructedKey] = inJSON[key];
        }
    }
    return form_data;
}

Invocation:

        var testJSON = {};
        var form_data = jsonToFormData (jsonForPost, testJSON);

I am using testJSON just to see the converted results since I would not be able to extract the contents of form_data. AJAX post call:

        $.ajax({
            type: "POST",
            url: somePostURL,
            data: form_data,
            processData : false,
            contentType : false,
            success: function (data) {
            },
            error: function (e) {
            }
        });

You can simply use:

formData.append('item', JSON.stringify(item));