Node querystring parsing and character encoding.

Question

I have this code:

var qs = require('querystring');
var http = require('http');

http.createServer(function (req, res) {

    if ('/' == req.url) {
        res.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Type': 'text/html'});
        res.end([
            '<form method="post" action="/url">',
            '<h1>My form</h1>',
            '<fieldset>',
            '<label>Personal information</label>',
            '<p>What is your name?</p>',
            '<input type="text" name="name">',
            '<p><button>Submit</button></p>',
            '</form>'
        ].join(''));
    } else if ('/url' == req.url && 'POST' == req.method) {
        var body = '';

        req.on('data', function (chunk) {
            body += chunk;
        });

        req.on('end', function () {
            res.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Type': 'text/html'});
            res.end('<p>Your name is: <strong>' + qs.parse(body).name + '</strong></p>');
        });
    }
}).listen(3000);

Lets say i write my swedish name "Anders Östman" name in the input field and POST the form. Everything seems to work fine, except that my name is output as Anders ï¿½stman. The charatcher "Ö" get trashed... I guess this have something to do with character encoding and I need to set/convert the parsed object to UTF-8.

Q: Is there a way to qs.parse() directly into a UTF-8 object? Or does object does'nt have encoding? Do i need to encode the object value when i output it instead?

gog · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-28 10:31:53Z

1

To ensure the browser sends the form data properly encoded, try adding an explicit encoding header:

res.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Type': 'text/html; charset=UTF-8'});

To debug this, try adding

 console.log(body)

to the second branch. If it says

name=Anders+%D6stman

the browser is still sending Latin-1 (which is wrong). It should be

name=Anders+%C3%96stman

edited May 28, 2014 at 10:31

answered May 28, 2014 at 9:28

gog

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8 Comments

Anders Östman Over a year ago

Does'nt work. Neither does this: 'Content-Type': 'text/html; charset=utf-8'

gog Over a year ago

@AndersÖstman: make sure to add the header to both parts and reload the server.

gog Over a year ago

@AndersÖstman: try adding a console.log (see edit). What does it say?

gog Over a year ago

@AndersÖstman: when you open the form page, what encoding does your browser indicate? (View Page Info in FF, Tools/Encoding in Chrome)? Have you restarted the browser?

gog Over a year ago

@AndersÖstman: BTW, it should be "charset", not "encoding" - my bad.

|

mscdex · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-28 14:00:16Z

You need to change the Content-Type for both the form and the POST response to text/html; charset=utf-8. After that you will see the expected result (I tested it locally):

var qs = require('querystring');
var http = require('http');

http.createServer(function (req, res) {

    if ('/' == req.url) {
        res.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Type': 'text/html; charset=utf-8'});
        res.end([
            '<form method="post" action="/url">',
            '<h1>My form</h1>',
            '<fieldset>',
            '<label>Personal information</label>',
            '<p>What is your name?</p>',
            '<input type="text" name="name">',
            '<p><button>Submit</button></p>',
            '</form>'
        ].join(''));
    } else if ('/url' == req.url && 'POST' == req.method) {
        var body = '';

        req.on('data', function (chunk) {
            body += chunk;
        });

        req.on('end', function () {
            res.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Type': 'text/html; charset=utf-8'});
            res.end('<p>Your name is: <strong>' + qs.parse(body).name + '</strong></p>');
        });
    }
}).listen(3000);

You could alternatively set the charset in the html as meta tags in the <head> with:

<meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8">

or for HTML5:

<meta charset="utf-8">

Anders Östman · Accepted Answer · 2014-05-28 14:16:15Z

0

Seems like this was some problems in the cache or similiar... i tried in another browser, and it worked. Then i made a total cache deletion of chrome, and got it to work there aswell!

answered May 28, 2014 at 14:16

Anders Östman

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