Requesting data posted from fetch api

Question

I have a component (code below) which sends a text message (sms), via Twilio, to a user when activated. The number being sent the text message is dynamic based on the user that's logged in at the time, so I need the number to be transmitted via the fecth post request. Once posted, I have a route (service) set on express to begin execution of the code to send the sms to the number.

My issue is that I can not seem to get access to the number that's been posted. How can I go about gaining accessing to the data being sent using the code below (If im even going about it the right way)?

Component:

//Fetch Request
var request = new Request('./time', {
    method: 'POST', 
    body:'6626****'
});

getTime(){
    fetch(request).then(function(response) {
        console.log(response); 
    }).catch(function(error) {
        console.log(error);});
    });
}

Express Route (Service):

app.post("/time",function(req,res){
    client.messages.create({ 
        to: '+1'+req.data, 
        from: '+166****', 
        body: "This is the ship that made the Kessel Run in fourteen parsecs?
    });
});

Answer 1

Twilio developer evangelist here.

cwbutler is definitely on the right track here. It would be better to send the data to your backend as a parameter in the post data and then use body parser to extract it. So, that would look a little like this.

First, use a parameter in the body and set the content type to application/x-www-form-urlencoded.

var request = new Request('./time', {
    method: 'POST', 
    body:'number=6626****',
    headers: {
        "Content-Type": "application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
    }
});

Then, install body-parser to your project.

$ npm install body-parser --save

Then in the Express app require body-parser, set the app to use it and look for the object req.body which has your incoming parameter.

var bodyParser = require("body-parser");

app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded());

app.post("/time",function(req,res){
    client.messages.create({ 
        to: '+1'+req.body.number, 
        from: '+166****', 
        body: "This is the ship that made the Kessel Run in fourteen parsecs?"
    });
});

Let me know if this helps at all.

Answer 2

You need to parse the body of post requests in express.

They have a middleware that you can install via npm that does this for you:

https://github.com/expressjs/body-parser