Read checkbox value Node JS + Express + Jade

Question

I'm inserting web page values into a Mongo DB, Im using Node JS + Express + Jade. and I need to insert True or False, depending if checkbox is enabled or not.

In my router.js I have the following:

app.get('/notification', function(req, res) {
    res.render('notification', {  title: 'Nueva notificacion', notifications : NT });
});

app.post('/notification', function(req, res){
    console.log('Adding new notification');
    AM.addNewNotification({
        name    : req.param('name'),
        notification : req.param('notification'),
        active  : req.param('active')
    }, function(e){
        if (e){
            res.send(e, 400);
        }   else{
            res.send('ok', 200);
        }
    });
});

In my view I have the following:

.controls
                    label#active-me.checkbox Active
                        input(type="checkbox", name="active", id="active",checked='checked')

But I can't insert it, looks like value is not taken. Only name and notification values (Text) are inserted.

{ "name" : "Goodbye world", "notification" : "Short Message Service", "_id" : ObjectId("5298f603bd07b80376000005") }

Any suggestions?

Thanks

Answer 1

Browsers add checkbox's value to requests when the box is checked. There are several ways to handle this behavior on the server.

The most obvious is to treat the absence of parameter as its being false.

Another way is what Rails do: add a hidden input with the same name and zero value before the checkbox. In your case:

.controls
  label#active-me.checkbox Active
  input(type="hidden", name="active", value=0)
  input(type="checkbox", name="active", id="active",checked='checked')

In addition, your code in app.post should probably use req.body, instead of req.param.