Best way to retrieve contact form data on Node.js?

Question

I'm trying to setup a Node.js server that will listen for a contact form request URL and then retrieve the relevant data from the contact form.

The client will basically send out a request that should look like this :

HTML :

<form>
   <input type="text" class="typed" placeholder="name" name="name">
   <input type="text" class="typed" placeholder="email" name="email">
   <input type="text" class="typed" placeholder="subject" name="subject">
   <textarea class="typed" placeholder="your enquiry.." name="enquiry"></textarea>
   <input type="submit" value="submit">
</form>

JS :

$('form').submit(function () 
{
   var name = $.trim($(this).find('[name="name"]').val());
   var email = $.trim($(this).find('[name="email"]').val());
   var subject = $.trim($(this).find('[name="subject"]').val());
   var enquiry = $.trim($(this).find('textarea').val());

   $.ajax({
    url: "/contactform",
    type:'POST',
    data: {
        name : name,
        email: email,
        subject: subject,
        enquiry: enquiry
    }
   });
});

The browser escapes the necessary symbols and replaces the blanks with "+" and ends up sendind out something like this :

/contactform?name=some+name&email=someemail%40address.com&subject=some+email+subject&enquiry=some+enquiry

The server will receive the above request, it will escape it and then use Regex to try and retrieve the relevant data it contains, as follows :

var httpServer = http.createServer(function (request, response)
{
   // escaping it doesn't actually replace the "+" does it ? Any solutions ?
   var requestURL = unescape(request.url);

   var name = requestURL.match(/name=([^&email=]*)/)[1]; // returns * so * which is wrong
   var email = requestURL.match(/email=([^&subject=]*)/)[1]; // returns an empty string which is wrong
   var subject = requestURL.match(/subject=([^&enquiry=]*)/)[1]; // returns * som * which is wrong
   var enquiry = requestURL.match(/enquiry=(.*)/)[1]; // returns * some+enquiry * which is correct
}).listen(8080);

As you can read in the comments, my regex is not working properly. You can try it on your browser's console yourselves. What am I doing wrong ?

Also, as I'm new to this, is there a better format for sending out contact form data, from the client to the server? Or is the ?xxx=xxx+xxx+xxx&xxxx=xxxx+xx+xxx&....etc format the best one since it seems to be the standard one? The browser forces the above format but I could force a different one using JS right?

I'm just thinking that the above won't work if the user happens to e.g. use &subject= somewhere in the text they type in. It's highly unlikely but still kind of annoying that there isn't a 100% reliable way of retrieving form data on the server. Or is there one ?

The above client/server side code is obviously incomplete. I'm omitting the irrelevant stuff to make it more readable..

Thanks for your help in advance.

Duplicate of http://stackoverflow.com/questions/18612342/how-to-find-request-parameters-in-nodejs — xShirase, Oct 05 '14 at 16:10
And of : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/6912584/how-to-get-get-query-string-variables-in-node-js — xShirase, Oct 05 '14 at 16:11
@xShirase the `url` module in npm is unnecessary since the same functionality is baked into node core. — mscdex, Oct 05 '14 at 16:11
I didn't see those posts Shirase. Thanks for pointing them out. Although I'm also asking about the best way/format when sending form data from the client to server.. — Kawd, Oct 05 '14 at 16:18

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Oct 05 '14 at 16:09

1

Why not just use the built-in url module to parse the url? It performs all of the unescaping and everything for you. Example:

var url = require('url');

// ...

var httpServer = http.createServer(function (request, response)
{
  var info = url.parse(request.url, true);
  console.dir(info);
}).listen(8080);

answered Oct 05 '14 at 16:09

mscdex

104,356
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I didn't about that! I'm just learning Node actually so thanks! – Kawd Oct 05 '14 at 16:18

score 0 · Answer 2 · answered Oct 05 '14 at 16:09

0

You need to put the following string into a positive lookahead not into a character class.

var name = requestURL.match(/name=(.*?)(?=&email=)/)[1]; 
var email = requestURL.match(/email=(.*?)(?=&subject=)/)[1];
var subject = requestURL.match(/subject=(.*?)(?=&enquiry=)/)[1];

Example:

> requestURL.match(/name=(.*?)(?=&email=)/)[1];
'some+name'
> requestURL.match(/email=(.*?)(?=&subject=)/)[1];
'someemail%40address.com'
> requestURL.match(/subject=(.*?)(?=&enquiry=)/)[1];
'some+email+subject'

answered Oct 05 '14 at 16:09

Avinash Raj

172,303
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Why isn't the character class working ? I thought that the `match everything that is not XXX` regex was `[^XXX]*`. Is it not the case? – Kawd Oct 05 '14 at 16:17
negated character class would match any single char but not the one inside char class. May i delete my answer? – Avinash Raj Oct 05 '14 at 16:40

Best way to retrieve contact form data on Node.js?

2 Answers2