Request.js Simulate a File Upload (multipart/form-data)

Question

I have an express.js post function which works fine for receiving and processing a file.

I'm trying to write a jasmine unit-test which simulates the same thing using fs & request .

const request = require("request")
const fs = require("fs")
const app = require("../app.js")
const base_url = "http://localhost:3002/"

var wordFile = fs.readFileSync(__dirname + '/test.docx', 'utf8')

describe("POST a word file to /word", function() {
  it("parses the word file, and returns an array of components", function(done) {
    request({
      url: base_url + "word",
      method: "POST",
      json: true,
      headers: {
        "content-type": "multipart/form-data",
      },
      body: wordFile
    }, function (error, response, body) {
         expect(response.statusCode).toBe(200)
         done()
       }
    )
  })
})

I get back a 500 error but when I use the following upload view on my app it works fine:

<form action="/mediaDev/word" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data">
    <input type="file" name='doc' placeholder="Select file"/>
    <br/>
    <button>Upload</button>
</form>

Is this problem related to the fact that I'm reading the file as utf8, or something else?

Answer 1

In your form you are posting to /mediaDev/word whereas in your test you are posting to just /word . Check this is correct.

You are also not following the request.js documented examples for sending multipart form data , which for your case would look like this:

var formData = {
  doc: fs.createReadStream(__dirname + '/test.docx', {encoding:'utf8'})
}

request.post({url: base_url + "word", formData: formData}, function(error, repsonse, body) {
  expect(response.statusCode).toBe(200)
  done()
});