POST route handling in Express - Mini Project: Build & Apply

POST route handling

📖 Scenario: You are building a simple Express server that accepts user data through a POST request.This is common when users submit forms on websites.

🎯 Goal: Create an Express server with a POST route at /submit that receives JSON data with a name and age and stores it in a list.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create an Express app

Add middleware to parse JSON request bodies

Create a POST route at /submit

Store received data in an array called users

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Handling POST requests is essential for web servers to receive data from users, such as form submissions or API calls.

💼 Career

Backend developers often write POST route handlers to process and store user input securely and efficiently.

1

Set up Express app and users array

Create an Express app by requiring express and calling it. Then create an empty array called users to store user data.

Express

const express = require('express');
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use require('express') to import Express.

Call express() to create the app.

Create an empty array users to hold user objects.

2

Add JSON body parsing middleware

Add middleware to the Express app to parse incoming JSON request bodies using app.use(express.json()).

Express

const express = require('express');
const app = express();
const users = [];
// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use app.use(express.json()) to enable JSON parsing for POST requests.

3

Create POST route at /submit

Create a POST route handler for /submit using app.post. Inside the handler, extract name and age from req.body and push an object with these properties into the users array.

Express

const express = require('express');
const app = express();
const users = [];
app.use(express.json());

// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use app.post('/submit', (req, res) => { ... }) to create the route.

Extract name and age from req.body.

Push the new user object into users.

Send a 201 status with a confirmation message.

4

Start the server on port 3000

Add code to start the Express server listening on port 3000 using app.listen. Log a message 'Server running on port 3000' when it starts.

Express

const express = require('express');
const app = express();
const users = [];
app.use(express.json());

app.post('/submit', (req, res) => {
    const { name, age } = req.body;
    users.push({ name, age });
    res.status(201).send('User added');
});

// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use app.listen(3000, () => { ... }) to start the server.

Inside the callback, log the message to confirm the server is running.