Getting SyntaxError: Unexpected token u in JSON at position 0 when running Lambda Test

Question

running Lambda test with

{
  "var1": "2017-04-17T18:48:03.608Z",
  "var2": "0.45",
  "var3": "0.5"
}

Function:

exports.handler =  (event, context, callback) => {

    console.log("event.body = " + event.body);
    const {var1, var2, var3} = JSON.parse(event.body);
    const tmpItem = {
        "var_1": var1,
        "var_2": var2,
        "var_3": var3
    };
    console.log('Inserting item');
}

gives the following exception:

Request ID: "3aa87175-d544-11e8-ab0a-2b268a563fb1"

Function Logs:

START RequestId: 3aa87175-d544-11e8-ab0a-2b268a563fb1 Version: $LATEST
2018-10-21T15:16:05.617Z    3aa87175-d544-11e8-ab0a-2b268a563fb1    event.body = undefined
2018-10-21T15:16:05.636Z    3aa87175-d544-11e8-ab0a-2b268a563fb1    SyntaxError: Unexpected token u in JSON at position 0
    at JSON.parse (<anonymous>)
    at exports.handler (/var/task/index.js:18:89)
END RequestId: 3aa87175-d544-11e8-ab0a-2b268a563fb1
REPORT RequestId: 3aa87175-d544-11e8-ab0a-2b268a563fb1  Duration: 82.98 ms  Billed Duration: 100 ms     Memory Size: 128 MB Max Memory Used: 25 MB  
RequestId: 3aa87175-d544-11e8-ab0a-2b268a563fb1 Process exited before completing request

What seems to be the issue?

Answer 1

This is because when you test your lambda with a packet, say

{
  "var1": "2017-04-17T18:48:03.608Z",
  "var2": "0.45",
  "var3": "0.5"
}

Then that packet is passed as the event to the handler.

However, you are doing JSON.parse(event.body), but for the above packet, event.body is undefined(which has token u at position 0).

You should change your test packet to:

{
    "body": "{\"var1\":\"2017-04-17T18:48:03.608Z\",\"var2\":\"0.45\",\"var3\":\"0.5\"}"
}

Note that the body is a stringified JSON, because API Gateway Lambdas expect event body in a stringified format.