"Error": "invalid input value for enum" only when using pg package in application to do INSERT SQL operation

Question

I am beginning to build out the user authentication part of my application and I am using PostgreSQL as my database. I have a table set up in PG with the following code. This is the code I used to set-up my USERS table. When I did INSERTS in the psql console everything works fine. However, when I do it in my NodeJS application which uses the pg npm package and is querying the database via a client instance, does NOT work properly.

  DROP EXTENSION IF EXISTS pgcrypto;
  DROP TYPE IF EXISTS genderEnum;
  DROP TYPE IF EXISTS roleEnum;
  -----------------------------------------------

  CREATE OR REPLACE FUNCTION trigger_set_timestamp()
  RETURNS TRIGGER AS $$
  BEGIN
      NEW.updated_at = NOW();
      RETURN NEW;
      END;
  $$ LANGUAGE plpgsql;

  -----------------------------------------------
  DROP EXTENSION IF EXISTS pgcrypto;
  CREATE EXTENSION pgcrypto;

  -----------------------------------------------

  CREATE TYPE genderEnum AS ENUM ('male', 'female', 'other');
  CREATE TYPE roleEnum AS ENUM ('banned', 'suspended', 'member', 'admin', 'developer');

  -----------------------------------------------
  CREATE TABLE users
  (
  id            serial       NOT NULL PRIMARY KEY,
  username      varchar(33)  NOT NULL UNIQUE,
  password      varchar(255) NOT NULL,
  date_of_birth date         NOT NULL,
  gender        genderEnum   NOT NULL,
  created_at    timestamptz  NOT NULL DEFAULT NOW(),
  updated_at    timestamptz  NOT NULL DEFAULT NOW(),
  role          roleEnum     NOT NULL DEFAULT 'member',
  description   text,
  image         jsonb,
  friends       jsonb
  );

  -----------------------------------------------
  CREATE TRIGGER set_timestamp
  BEFORE UPDATE ON users
  FOR EACH ROW
  EXECUTE PROCEDURE trigger_set_timestamp();

---

Command Line (successful) Attempts:

INSERT INTO USERS ( username, password, date_of_birth, gender, role, description, friends ) VALUES ( 'Amy', '123456', '02/24/1975', 'female', 'member', 'I am a fun girl.', '["Jack", "Suzie"]' );


INSERT 0 1


SELECT * FROM USERS WHERE username = 'Amy';


 id | username | password | date_of_birth | gender |          created_at           |          updated_at           |  role  |   description    | image |      friends
----+----------+----------+---------------+--------+-------------------------------+-------------------------------+--------+------------------+-------+-------------------
  9 | Amy      | 123456   | 1975-02-24    | female | 2019-08-17 03:19:34.518501-04 | 2019-08-17 03:19:34.518501-04 | member | I am a fun girl. |       | ["Jack", "Suzie"]
(1 row)

---

NodeJS Code (unsuccessful) Attempt

Below is my NodeJS code that I currently have for this query. I have an async/await function wrapped inside of a POST method. I am destructuring the values from req.body and then inserting them into the SQL query as parameters in place of the $1, $2, $3...etc, and for the NON-required values (like description, image, and friends), I have a statement like friends||null as a fallback to be precautionary (I'm not 100% sure it's needed). I also have some primitive error handling going on, but that is just there for me to have something atm. I will update that when it the time comes and it is more important for the application.

router.post("/register", async (req, res) => {

  const date = new Date();
  const loggableDate = date.toLocaleDateString();
  const loggableTime = date.toLocaleTimeString();

  const { username, password, date_of_birth, gender, role, description, image, friends } = req.body;

  console.log("\nBODY", req.body, "\n");

  try {
    const user = await database.query(`INSERT into 
    USERS (
      username, 
      password, 
      date_of_birth, 
      gender, 
      role, 
      description, 
      image, 
      friends
    ) 
    VALUES ($1, $2, $3, $4, $5, $6, $7, $8)`, [
        [username],
        [password],
        [date_of_birth],
        [gender],
        [role],
        [description || null],
        [image || null],
        [friends || null]
      ]
    );

    if (!user) {
      return res.status(404).json({ message: errors.clientSideError404, date: loggableDate, time: loggableTime });
    }

    return res.status(200).json(newUser.rows[0]);

  } catch (error) {

    return res.status(500).json({ error: error.stack, date: loggableDate, time: loggableTime });

  }
});

The result of the above NodeJS code:

{
    "error": "error: invalid input value for enum genderenum: \"{\"female\"}\"\n    at Connection.parseE (/Users/JON-DOE/Desktop/virtual-desktop/Work/app/node_modules/pg/lib/connection.js:604:11)\n    at Connection.parseMessage (/Users/JON-DOE/Desktop/virtual-desktop/Work/app/node_modules/pg/lib/connection.js:401:19)\n    at Socket.<anonymous> (/Users/JON-DOE/Desktop/virtual-desktop/Work/app/node_modules/pg/lib/connection.js:121:22)\n    at Socket.emit (events.js:203:13)\n    at addChunk (_stream_readable.js:294:12)\n    at readableAddChunk (_stream_readable.js:275:11)\n    at Socket.Readable.push (_stream_readable.js:210:10)\n    at TCP.onStreamRead (internal/stream_base_commons.js:166:17)",
    "date": "8/17/2019",
    "time": "3:44:51 AM"
}

When I plug in the following object on PostMan (with raw data button selected, application/JSON set as the text type).

{
    "username": "Amy",
    "password": "123456",
    "date_of_birth": "02/24/1957",
    "gender": "female",
    "role": "member",
    "description": "I am a fun girl",
    "friends": ["Jack", "Suzie"]
}

I am hoping to figure out what I am doing wrong with this enumerator type. I am thinking it's something to do with the way I'm inputting the data with PostMan because the psql console works just fine. Please forgive me if this post is long-winded. I am fairly new to backend programming, so I am taking in a lot of information here, and someone's help will be extremely appreciated. Just for the record, user's passwords will be encrypted with bCryptJS along with JWTs, but for now, I'm just trying to get a simple INSERT to work!!

Thank you!

Answer 1

Your error after unquoting:

error: invalid input value for enum genderenum: "{"female"}"

It looks like the value you try to insert is not female but {"female"}. Observe:

=> create temporary table test (a genderEnum);
=> insert into test values ('female');
INSERT 0 1
=> insert into test values ('{"female"}')
ERROR:  invalid input value for enum genderenum: "{"female"}"

So it looks like your data isn't what you think it is.