How to send integers in query parameters in nodejs Express service

Question

I have a nodejs express web server running on my box. I want to send a get request along with query parameters. Is there any way to find type of each query parameter like int,bool,string. The query parameters key value is not know to me. I interpret as a json object of key value pairs at server side.

Answer 1

You can't, as HTTP has no notion of types: everything is a string, including querystring parameters.

What you'll need to do is to use the req.query object and manually transform the strings into integers using parseInt():

req.query.someProperty = parseInt(req.query.someProperty);

Answer 2

You can also try

var someProperty = (+req.query.someProperty);

This worked for me!

Answer 3

As mentioned by Paul Mougel, http query and path variables are strings. However, these can be intercepted and modified before being handled. I do it like this:

var convertMembershipTypeToInt = function (req, res, next) {
  req.params.membershipType = parseInt(req.params.membershipType);
  next();
};

before:

router.get('/api/:membershipType(\\d+)/', api.membershipType);

after:

router.get('/api/:membershipType(\\d+)/', convertMembershipTypeToInt, api.membershipType);

In this case, req.params.membershipType is converted from a string to an integer. Note the regex to ensure that only integers are passed to the converter.