array unintentionally gets converted to object with supertest

Question

the array bellow (query.conditions) gets converted to an object somehow, any idea why and how I can prevent it ?

The request:

          supertest(options.url)
            .get('/api/action')
            .expect(200)
            .query({
              conditions: 
                [
                  { 'user' : user._id },
                  { 'type' : 14 },
                  { 'what' : 4 },
                ]
            })

What the server gets:

{
  "conditions": {
    "user": "5592cc851f3febd016dae920",
    "type": "14",
    "what": "4"
  }
}

Answer 1

There seem to be issues with query string serialization in superagent (which is used by supertest).

To work around that, you can use qs.stringify() on your data:

var qs = require('qs');

...

supertest(options.url)
  .get('/api/action')
  .expect(200)
  .query(qs.stringify({
    conditions: 
      [
        { 'user' : user._id },
        { 'type' : 14 },
        { 'what' : 4 },
      ]
  }))

(if at all possible, it might be more appropriate to POST JSON instead, though)