Accepting Data

So far, we have an Express app that runs, but can't do much more than that. 0:00 To accept JSON data coming into our routes, 0:04 we'll need to introduce some middleware to our Express application. 0:06 While we could write the logic to parse the JSON in the incoming request 0:11 ourselves, someone has already written a module that will do this for 0:15 us called body-parser. 0:19 Let's install back here in the terminal and save it to our package.json file. 0:21 npm install --save 0:28 body-parser@~1.15 This will save 0:32 this specific version to our package.json file with the latest patch release. 0:42 To use this module, 0:47 we'll switch back to the app.js file and 0:52 enter, var jsonParser 1:00 = require("body-parser").json 1:05 Underneath the Express dependency body-parser contains a number of 1:18 parsers to help you manage HTTP requests. 1:22 But we only need the JSON parser for this project. 1:26 jsonParser is a function that will return middleware that we can add to our app. 1:32 On the app object, we can call the use method and 1:45 use jsonParser's returned middleware. 1:48 When the app receives a request, this middleware will parse the request 1:58 body as JSON and make it accessible from the request's body property. 2:03 This is similar to how we passed in the my message property between middleware. 2:14 Let's take a look at this in action to see it a little more clearly. 2:20 First, we're going to write some middleware before the jsonParser is added. 2:24 This checks to see if the request body object has the property named body. 2:37 If it does. 2:52 It logs out, the sky is, and 2:59 then the color from the incoming JSON. 3:03 If it doesn't, let's log out. 3:23 There is no body property on the request. 3:35 We're expecting that it doesn't, 3:42 because the jsonParser hasn't been able to get his hands on the request yet. 3:45 Let's add the exact same middleware after the JSON parser is introduced to see if 3:57 there's a difference. 4:02 This will work, but let's refactor it slightly. 4:05 We've just added the exact same lines of code twice in our application, 4:08 which is a red flag that we could do something better. 4:12 Let's assign our middleware function to the variable jsonCheck. 4:17 Then we can use it with our before and after checks like this. 4:47 That looks so much cleaner. 4:58 Remember to save the application. 5:01 Move over to the terminal and start the server. 5:04 In Postman, let's make a POST request to our API. 5:11 Choose POST from the dropdown. 5:17 Make sure the url is localhost:3000. 5:20 Click on Body. 5:26 This is where we're going to put the JSON in the body of our request. 5:28 Select raw and make sure that JSON, application/json, 5:32 Is selected here in the Content-Type dropdown. 5:38 In this text area here, we can enter the JSON we want to send. 5:43 Let's put color: blue. 5:49 Hit Send, and we'll see the same error we did with GET requests we made earlier. 5:57 But that's okay, we haven't defined any routes yet. 6:05 Let's go back to the terminal and see what we have there. 6:09 When the first middleware is hit, the JSON is not parsed yet, but 6:15 the second shows that we had access to the data. 6:20 This is after the JSON parser was introduced to the app. 6:23 Great. 6:26 Let's stop the server and delete the middleware we just created. 6:28 Leaving only the JSON parser behind. 6:39 In the next video, we'll start building the routes for the API. 6:43