CODEWITHSUNDEEP
node.jsexpresspostman
Giannis
Giannis

Reputation: 452

How can I pass a list of strings in the URL in Express.js

To pass single parameters in the URL I use the following in Postman:

http://localhost:3000/api/prices/:shopId

That works!

Now, What I want to do is, to replace the shopId with List of shopIds.

Do have any ideas about how can I make this happen?

Pseudo Code:

URL for shopId = 1: http://localhost:3000/api/prices/1

URL for shopId = 2: http://localhost:3000/api/prices/2

What should I do to get the both shopId 1 and 2 in single API response?

Upvotes: 5

Views: 8286

Answers (3)

Joakim
Joakim

Reputation: 1

Adding an alternative answer:

URL: GET http://localhost:3000/api/prices/shopIds?id=1&id=2&id=3&id=4

And then in your express get endpoint:

let ids = req.body.id

However, ids might be a string or a list depending on if there is one or more id in the parameter list. Not sure how to treat this in a good way.

Upvotes: 0

bharadhwaj
bharadhwaj

Reputation: 2139

For your requirement, I can think of a couple of alternatives, which I feel are better practices than what you mentioned.

  1. Send it in the body using any of POST or PUT.

    URL: http://localhost:3000/api/prices/shopIds

    Body: { shopIds: [1, 2, 3, 4] }

You can retrieve the IDs like,

const { shopIds } = req.body // shopIds = [1, 2, 3, 4]

or 

const shopIds = req.body.shopIds // shopIds = [1, 2, 3, 4]

  1. If you want to use GET, then use query parameter

    URL: POST http://localhost:3000/api/prices/shopIds?ids=1,2,3,4

Here you can retrieve the IDs as a string and then convert them to array,

const ids = req.query.ids.split(','); // ids = [1 ,2, 3, 4]

If you still want to use it the way you mentioned, it's already answered. Use that method!

Hope this helps!

Upvotes: 4

Azami
Azami

Reputation: 2161

Your best shot is to pass the elements of your array delimited with a character that won't ever be in any of the words (for example, a comma).

Take this snippet for example:

app.get('api/prices/:ids', function(req, res){
    var ids = req.params.ids.split(',');
    console.log(ids); //['shopId1', 'shopdId2']
})

Endpoint that you reach with a GET request to:

http://localhost:3000/api/prices/shopId1,shopId2

Upvotes: 6

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