JSON data array in req.body

Question

So I am trying to pass json data to my req.body

The data looks like this:

answers = ["A","B"]; //This is an array that will be added to the JSON Object

var Student_Answers = { //This is the JSON object
   Answers: answers,
   matricNumber: matric
};

This is the post request:

$.ajax({
      type: "POST",
      url: `/exam/${matric2}`,
      dataType: "json",
      data: Student_Answers,
      success: function(data) {
        console.log("data received: ", data);
      }
    });

So the data got passed to the req.body successfully but my problem is how the data looks like in the req.body output, when I logged the req.body it looks like this:

 {
  'Answers[]': [ 'A', 'B' ],
  matricNumber: '88/2386'
}

But what I am expecting

 {
  Answers: [ 'A', 'B' ],
  matricNumber: '88/2386'
}

Can someone explain to me why the answers array is viewed that way in the req.body ('Answers[]': [ 'A', 'B' ]) .it is messing up my saving the data to mongodb.

Answer 1

dataType tells jQuery what kind of data you're expecting back in the response. To tell jQuery what kind of data you're sending in the request, set contentType . (And yes, it is confusing that data is the data to send, but dataType is the type of response you expect. API fail. 😊 ) You also need to stringify it yourself, jQuery won't do it for you:

$.ajax({
  type: "POST",
  url: `/exam/${matric2}`,
  contentType: "application/json",       // <===========
  data: JSON.stringify(Student_Answers), // <===========
  success: function(data) {
    console.log("data received: ", data);
  }
});