bodyDisposal

A simple connect middleware which manipulate your req.body and clean the crime scene.

What will it do?

If you're using the default configuration (do it):

• Every form field which gets submitted as empty ('' - as in ?password=&..) will be deleted.

• Every deleted field whose name is contained in the req.body._delete array (or is req.body._delete) will be set to undefined.

You just need to add it to your middlewares (after req.body has been set):

connect.use(bodyDisposal())

If you really want to change something (at your own risk):

connect.use(
  bodyDisposal('_delete', 
    // key used to contain the names of the fields which have to be killed
  {
    deleteData: false,        
      // If this is true, you will be able to delete field submitted with data
      // Don't do it, being able to delete something ONLY when it's empty 
      // is pretty handy 
    deleteValue: undefined
      // When set to something the `deleted field` will contain something.
      // Yeah, I know, surprising. 
      // Changing it doesn't make sense - unless you're ignoring undefined
      // values and you won't actually delete the data. In that case I'd 
      // still go about detecting undefined.
  })
)

Why?

The rationale behind this little project is having a set of well defined rules to avoid being captured in the suckyness of web forms:

• Ignore empty fields
• If you want to set a field as empty you have to say it

By ignoring the inputs left empty by default, you can easily send partial form to update only the data you want:

$.post({ 
  username: username,
  avatar: avatar
})

It also make things simpler for fields who are not supposed to be pre-populated again:

<input type="text" name="username" value="framp">
<input type="password" name="password" value="">

In this way creating a checkbox which can be used as a toggle button is as easy as writing:

<input type="checkbox" name="toggle" {?toggle}checked{/toggle}>
<input type="hidden" name="_delete" value="toggle">

Sweet!

What about multiple fields?

<input type="checkbox" name="toggles_0" value="checked" {_.toggles_0}>
<input type="hidden" name="_delete[0]" value="toggles_0">
<input type="checkbox" name="toggles_1" value="checked" {_.toggles_1}>
<input type="hidden" name="_delete[1]" value="toggles_1">
<input type="checkbox" name="toggles_2" value="checked" {_.toggles_2}>
<input type="hidden" name="_delete[2]" value="toggles_2">

Creating an optional field which can be updated as empty in the future is pretty simple too:

<input type="hidden" name="_delete" value="optionalDescription">
<textarea name="optionalDescription"></texarea>

Need to delete something?

$.post({ 
  _delete: 'avatar'
})

Why not use a _keep instead of _delete?

It's just a matter of taste.

I simply found myself having more fields to keep than fields to delete.

License

MIT