Multiple file upload on express js with multer returns empty array

Question

I am building an app on Glitch with express js which requires the user to upload multiple files. Here is my code:

  var express = require('express');
var cors= require('cors');
var bodyParser= require('body-parser');
var contexts= require('./contexts');
var path= require('path');
var fileUpload= require('express-fileupload');
var multer= require('multer');
var upload = multer();

var app = express();

app.use(cors());
app.use(bodyParser.json());
app.use(fileUpload());

app.set('view engine', 'ejs');
app.set('views', 'views');
app.use(express.static('views/'));
//here express-fileuploads works fine
app.post('/getcontexts', function (req,res) {
   var context=contexts.get(req.files.file.data.toString());
   res.render('rast', {length: context.length, content : context});    
     });

//this is when I get an empty array 
   app.post('/getrast', upload.array('rastfiles'), function (req, res) {
  
     res.json({data: req.files});
     });

   var listener = app.listen(process.env.PORT, function () {
    console.log('SERVER STARTED ON PORT ' + listener.address().port);
   });

and here is the ejs form I use:

        <form action="/getrast" method="POST" enctype="multipart/form-data">
        <label for="rastfiles">Please select your Rast genome files with .txt extension</label>
        <br>
        <input type="file" id="file" name="rastfiles" class="inputFile" multiple>
        <br>
        <input type="submit" value="Run" id="sub">
      </form>

I already used express-fileupload to upload a single file and it worked just fine. However, when I use multer to upload multiple files I get and empty array when logging req,files into the console. Any idea why this might be happening?

I'd really appreciate any help. Thanks!

Answer 1

The reason why multer was not working is because express-fileupload was already being used as middleware for file uploading, so commenting out this line:

  app.use(fileUpload())

fixed the problem for me.