why use body parser express

Why use body parser express?

If you are a developer who works with Node.js and Express.js, you may have come across the term "body parser express" quite often. But what exactly is it and why should you use it? Let's dive into it.

What is Body Parser Express?

Body Parser Express is a middleware module for Express.js that extracts the entire body portion of an incoming request stream and exposes it on req.body. The extracted data can be in any format like JSON, text, URL-encoded form data, etc.

Why use Body Parser Express?

Now comes the question - why should you use Body Parser Express? Well, the basic idea behind using it is to parse the incoming request body data easily. Without it, you would need to manually parse the request body by reading the stream bit by bit and converting it into a usable format. This can be time-consuming and error-prone.

Body Parser Express provides a simple and easy-to-use API that makes parsing request body data much simpler. You just need to include it in your express app and use its middleware functions.

How to use Body Parser Express?

The usage of Body Parser Express is pretty straightforward. You just need to install it using npm and include it in your express app as middleware.

// Install body-parser
npm install body-parser

// Include it in your express app
const express = require('express');
const bodyParser = require('body-parser');
const app = express();

// Use body-parser middleware
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended: false }));
app.use(bodyParser.json());

The above code installs body-parser using npm and includes it in an express app. It also uses the two middleware functions - urlencoded and json - to parse incoming request data in the respective formats.

Other than these two middleware functions, Body Parser Express also provides other middleware functions like raw, text, and XML. You can use them according to your requirements.

Conclusion

So, that's why you should use Body Parser Express - to parse incoming request body data easily and efficiently. It saves you time and effort that would have been required if you were to manually parse the body data. And with its simple API and easy-to-use middleware functions, using it is a breeze.