if you are starting new with Node JS, you will probably face this problem, while submitting the form to a post URL.The problem you will face is getting a empty req.body in-spite of sending the form properly. To resolve this issue, you have make two change in your current system.Add the following to the form element<pre class="ql-syntax" spellcheck="false">enctype="application/x-www-form-urlencoded"
</pre>Though, if you do not add this it will still work as this is the default for a form.The second thing, in your index.js in root add the following lines to unable the form.<pre class="ql-syntax" spellcheck="false">app.use(express.urlencoded({
 extended: true
}));
</pre>This is it, now you will be able to receive the form data in req.bodyif you are facing the same issue for the JSON inputs in your API calls, please check the<a href="/how-to-get-post-data-in-json-in-express-js-apis-node-js" rel="noopener noreferrer"> link here to unable it. </a>

How to get form data in post request in Express JS - Node JS

File upload in node js is one hell of a job. Not knowing how is makes it a bit more troublesome. File upload is used at a number of places like image upload, excels for bulk upload etc.<h2>Install Multer </h2><pre class="ql-syntax" spellcheck="false">npm install --save multer
</pre>from here you can get more details about <a href="https://www.npmjs.com/package/multer" rel="noopener noreferrer">multer</a>.<h2>Configuring Multer </h2>The preferable place to add the multer configuration is in the routes file.<pre class="ql-syntax" spellcheck="false">const multer = require("multer")

const upload = multer({
 storage: multer.diskStorage({
 destination: (req, file, cb) =&gt; {
 cb(null, "Uploads")
 },
 filename: (req, file, cb) =&gt; {
 cb(
 null,
 file.fieldname + "-" + Date.now() + "-" + file.originalname
 )
 }
 }),
 fileFilter: (req, file, cb) =&gt; {
 if (
 file.mimetype ===
 "application/vnd.openxmlformats-officedocument.spreadsheetml.sheet"
 ) {
 cb(null, true)
 } else {
 cb(null, false)
 return cb(new Error("Only .xlsx format allowed!"))
 }
 }
})
</pre><h2>Adding Multer to Route</h2><pre class="ql-syntax" spellcheck="false">app.post("/api/file-upload/v1", upload.single("file-key"), (req, res) =&gt; {
 console.log(req.file)
 res.send("File uploaded successfully!")
 })
</pre><h3>Assuming</h3><pre class="ql-syntax" spellcheck="false">&lt;form action="/api/file-upload/v1" method="post" enctype="multipart/form-data"&gt;
 &lt;input type="file" name="file-key" /&gt;
&lt;/form&gt;
</pre><h2>Validations</h2>all the validation are to be put in <code>fileFilter</code> section as per the requirement. For this case the system only allow excels to be uploaded.and we are done.Feel free to comment you suggestions.

File upload in node js is one hell of a job. Not knowing how is makes it a bit more troublesome.

File upload in node js is one hell of a job. Not knowing how is makes it a bit more troublesome

File upload in Node JS Using Multer

Initiating a new project is as exciting as frustrating. Going through all the routine work just to get the basic engine started, yaa I know the pain.<h2>create-express-boilerplate to Rescue</h2>I along with the tremendous help of <a href="https://github.com/hudaQeshta" rel="noopener noreferrer">huda</a> worked out the solution for you, in the form of create-express-boilerplate. It includes<ol><li>Entire expressjs setup</li><li>Validation Integration with <a href="https://express-validator.github.io/docs/" rel="noopener noreferrer">express-validator</a></li><li>Directory setups to provide you with less headache for where goes what</li><li>MVC architecture</li><li>DB support for both </li><li class="ql-indent-1"><a href="https://sequelize.org/" rel="noopener noreferrer">Sequelize </a>(MySQL and SQLite)</li><li class="ql-indent-1"><a href="https://mongoosejs.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer">Mongoose </a>(mongoDB)</li><li>Integrated<a href="https://jestjs.io/" rel="noopener noreferrer"> JEST test Suite</a></li><li>Both Vanilla JS and Typescript support</li><li><a href="https://typicode.github.io/husky/#/" rel="noopener noreferrer">Husky </a>Support for pre-commit hooks</li><li>Great amount of inbuild helper functions</li></ol>And many more to come..you can install the setup by running<pre class="ql-syntax" spellcheck="false" data-cacher="true" data-cacher-block-id="2398415744">npx create-express-boilerplate
</pre>you can have complete<a href="https://create-express-boilerplate.com/" rel="noopener noreferrer"> Documentation Here</a>feel free to provide us with your review and feedback in the form of comments or issues on <a href="https://github.com/msamgan/expressjs-api-boilerplate" rel="noopener noreferrer">github</a>. All your contributions are cardinally welcome.

Initiating a new project is as exciting as frustrating. Going through all the routine work just to get the basic engine started, yaa I know the pain.

create-express-boilerplate to create new API projects in a secs

In the very initial days of my work in Node JS if faced this issue. Though Sequelize provide a great ORM for MySQL but the association within the models is a bit tricky. you can find more about associations <a href="https://sequelize.org/master/manual/assocs.html" rel="noopener noreferrer">here</a>Before getting any further, if you want to get a setup for fully function code setup <a href="https://github.com/msamgan/expressjs-api-boilerplate" rel="noopener noreferrer">here it is</a><h2>Preface</h2>For the sake of understanding, lets consider two Models please inside the model directory, models/author.js and models/post.js. Models will look like as follows respectively.<h2>Author Model (models/author.js)</h2><pre class="ql-syntax" spellcheck="false" data-cacher="true" data-cacher-block-id="2221063348">'use strict';
const {
 Model
} = require('sequelize');
module.exports = (sequelize, DataTypes) =&gt; {
 class Author extends Model {
 /**
 * Helper method for defining associations.
 * This method is not a part of Sequelize lifecycle.
 * The `models/index` file will call this method automatically.
 */
 static associate(models) {
 // define association here
 }
 };

 Author.init({
 slug: DataTypes.STRING,
 name: DataTypes.STRING,
 }, {
 sequelize,
 modelName: 'Author',
 tableName: 'authors',
 });


 return Author;
};
</pre><h2>Post Model (models/post.js)</h2><pre class="ql-syntax" spellcheck="false" data-cacher="true" data-cacher-block-id="3112237828">'use strict';
const {
 Model,
} = require('sequelize');

module.exports = (sequelize, DataTypes) =&gt; {
 class Post extends Model {
 /**
 * Helper method for defining associations.
 * This method is not a part of Sequelize lifecycle.
 * The `models/index` file will call this method automatically.
 */
 static associate(models) {
 this.belongsTo(models.Author, {as: 'Author'});
 }
 }


 Post.init({
 slug: DataTypes.STRING,
 title: DataTypes.STRING,
 excerpt: DataTypes.STRING
 }, {
 sequelize,
 modelName: 'Post',
 tableName: 'posts',
 });

 return Post;
};
</pre>As shown in the post model, a belongs too association is made between Post and author. But as the comment suggest, associate method is not a part of Sequelize lifecycle. we have to call it manually.To achieve that, we need to create models/index.js with the following content.<h2>models/index.js</h2><pre class="ql-syntax" spellcheck="false" data-cacher="true" data-cacher-block-id="3338581372">'use strict';

const fs = require('fs');
const path = require('path');
const Sequelize = require('sequelize');
const basename = path.basename(__filename);
const env = process.env.NODE_ENV || 'development';
const config = require(__dirname + '/../config/database.json')[env];
const db = {};

let sequelize;
if (config.use_env_variable) {
 sequelize = new Sequelize(process.env[config.use_env_variable], config);
} else {
 sequelize = new Sequelize(config.database, config.username, config.password, config);
}

fs
 .readdirSync(__dirname)
 .filter(file =&gt; {
 return (file.indexOf('.') !== 0) &amp;&amp; (file !== basename) &amp;&amp; (file.slice(-3) === '.js');
 })
 .forEach(file =&gt; {
 const model = require(path.join(__dirname, file))(sequelize, Sequelize.DataTypes);
 db[model.name] = model;
 });

Object.keys(db).forEach(modelName =&gt; {
 if (db[modelName].associate) {
 db[modelName].associate(db);
 }
});

db.sequelize = sequelize;
db.Sequelize = Sequelize;

module.exports = db;

</pre>Ones you are done with this you can access all you models vie models/index.js<h2>Accessing Models</h2><pre class="ql-syntax" spellcheck="false" data-cacher="true" data-cacher-block-id="4182884854">const {Post, Author} = require('../../models');
</pre>You can find more about hoe to use association in accessing data <a href="https://sequelize.org/master/manual/creating-with-associations.html" rel="noopener noreferrer">here</a>GitHub Repo for the <a href="https://github.com/msamgan/expressjs-api-boilerplate" rel="noopener noreferrer">above code</a><div class="inline_html" contenteditable="false"><iframe width="100%" height="500" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/ctdMkbwHBU0" title="YouTube video player" frameborder="0" allow="accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture" allowfullscreen=""></iframe></div>

In the very initial days of my work in Node JS if faced this issue. Though Sequelize provide a great ORM for MySQL but the association within the models is a bit tricky.

How to create model association in Sequelize - express JS / Node JS

How to create model association in Sequelize 
 - express JS / Node JS

if you are starting new with Node JS, you will probably face this problem, while submitting the form to a post URL.

Thought it sounds simple and straight forward, this thing killed a lot of my time at the initial time of getting into node JS.the query string are directly available in the request for both get and post methods but to get the post data you send in json format you need to update you express JS index.js . In the root of your express JS setup you have index.js add the following line on the top after the creation of app.<pre class="ql-syntax" spellcheck="false">app.use(express.json());
</pre>Now you will be able to access the json data in post request in req.bodyIf you are facing the same issue with your form submits, please follow the <a href="/how-to-get-form-data-in-post-request-in-express-js-node-js" rel="noopener noreferrer">link for the solution.</a>

Thought it sounds simple and straight forward, this thing killed a lot of my time at the initial time of getting into node JS.