Node.js Express REST API - accessing JSON url params with GET request

Question

I have a REST endpoint that is /geo/search and requires a number of long/lat coordinates to be sent as part of the request (GEO polygon).

Is there any way I can use JSON in the GET request? I was thinking that that URL encoding may be a solution:

var data = encodeURIComponent({"coordinates":[[-122.610168,37.598167],[-122.288818,37.598167],[-122.288818,37.845833],[-122.610168,37.845833],[-122.610168,37.598167]]});

How would I access these params in the route?

And for your second question, if you use JQuery.param, then you can just access the coordinates using req.query.coordinates[x][y] in the route in Express. — mccannf
– mccannf, Commented Jul 27, 2014 at 19:48
Why not use the query string? That's what it's there for. You can either use the PHP/Rails/jQuery-style query string parameters with arrays as already mentioned, or you could just encode everything as JSON, encode it properly for the query string, and assign to a variable like data or something. There are lots of ways to handle this, but the last thing I would do in this case is attach it to part of the path. — Brad
– Brad, Commented Jul 27, 2014 at 20:55
No - see my second comment. You should be using req.query not req.params. — mccannf
– mccannf, Commented Jul 27, 2014 at 21:33
Thanks @mccannf but req.query.coordinates returns undefined. — Ben
– Ben, Commented Jul 27, 2014 at 21:49

Ben · Accepted Answer · 2014-07-27 22:17:31Z

Answer to #1 - thanks to @mccannf

Using JQuery.param:

Client:

var test = {"coordinates":[[-122.610168,37.598167],[-122.288818,37.598167],[-122.288818,37.845833],[-122.610168,37.845833],[-122.610168,37.598167]]};

    console.log($.param( test ));

Outputs:

coordinates%5B0%5D%5B%5D=-122.610168&coordinates%5B0%5D%5B%5D=37.598167&coordinates%5B1%5D%5B%5D=-122.288818&coordinates%5B1%5D%5B%5D=37.598167&coordinates%5B2%5D%5B%5D=-122.288818&coordinates%5B2%5D%5B%5D=37.845833&coordinates%5B3%5D%5B%5D=-122.610168&coordinates%5B3%5D%5B%5D=37.845833&coordinates%5B4%5D%5B%5D=-122.610168&coordinates%5B4%5D%5B%5D=37.598167

Answer to #2 - thanks to @Brad:

Server - Express route:

router.get('/search_polygon', function(req, res) {
    console.log('Server received: ' + JSON.stringify(req.query.coordinates));
...

Outputs:

Server received: [["-122.610168","37.598167"],["-122.288818","37.598167"],["-122.288818","37.845833"],["-122.610168","37.845833"],["-122.610168","37.598167"]]

My issue was trying to pass these as part of the path, and not as parameters as they should be.

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