I am learning and experimenting on NodeJs. I am using request-promise to call another api from NodeJs. I am using form-data to create a form and send it to another api. My snippet:

const requestPromise = require('request-promise');
const FormData = require('form-data');
....

var sendToAPI = async (fileObjBuffer, myId, timestamp) => {

    let formData = new FormData();
    formData.append('fileData', fileObjBuffer);
    formData.append('myId', myId);
    formData.append('fileName', timestamp);

    let options = {
        method: 'POST',
        uri: '<URL>',
        formData: formData,
        headers: {
            'Access-Control-Allow-Origin': '*',
            'enctype': 'multipart/form-data',
            'Content-Type': 'application/json',
            'Access-Control-Allow-Methods': 'GET,POST,OPTIONS,DELETE,PUT'
        },
        json: true
    };
    try {
        let apiResult = await requestPromise(options).promise();
        console.log('\n\napiResult: ', apiResult);
    } catch (error) {
        console.log('error in sending to api: ',error);
    } 
}

var fetchAllData = async () => {
    let query = 'select * from demo_db.demo_table;';
    let fileObject = "";
    var result;
    try {
        //cassandra query
        result = await client.execute(query, [], { prepare: true });
    } catch (error) {
        console.log('error in fetching data from Cassandra: ',error);
    }
    result.rows.forEach(resultObj => {
        fileObject = fileObject +resultObj['room_id'] +":"+resultObj['message_id']+":"+resultObj['original_message'] +":"+resultObj['send_date'] +":"+  resultObj['sender'] +"%";
    });
    let fileObjBuffer = new Buffer(fileObject);
    let myId = uuidv4();
    let timestamp = date.format(new Date(), 'YYYYMMMDDhhmmss', false);  
    sendToAPI(fileObjBuffer,myId,timestamp);
}

My error:

error in sending to api:  TypeError: Cannot read property 'name' of null
at FormData._getContentDisposition (/home/bhushan/NodeJS-Scheduler/node_modules/request/node_modules/form-data/lib/form_data.js:226:40)
at FormData._multiPartHeader (/home/bhushan/NodeJS-Scheduler/node_modules/request/node_modules/form-data/lib/form_data.js:177:33)
at FormData.append (/home/bhushan/NodeJS-Scheduler/node_modules/request/node_modules/form-data/lib/form_data.js:70:21)
at appendFormValue (/home/bhushan/NodeJS-Scheduler/node_modules/request/request.js:326:21)
at Request.init (/home/bhushan/NodeJS-Scheduler/node_modules/request/request.js:337:11)
at Request.RP$initInterceptor [as init] (/home/bhushan/NodeJS-Scheduler/node_modules/request-promise-core/configure/request2.js:45:29)
at new Request (/home/bhushan/NodeJS-Scheduler/node_modules/request/request.js:127:8)
at request (/home/bhushan/NodeJS-Scheduler/node_modules/request/index.js:53:10)
at sendToAPI (/home/bhushan/NodeJS-Scheduler/schedulerTest.js:52:25)
at fetchAllData (/home/bhushan/NodeJS-Scheduler/schedulerTest.js:95:2)
at process._tickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:68:7)

Please help me to solve this issue.

I am learning and experimenting on NodeJs. I am using request-promise to call another api from NodeJs. I am using form-data to create a form and send it to another api. My snippet:

const requestPromise = require('request-promise');
const FormData = require('form-data');
....

var sendToAPI = async (fileObjBuffer, myId, timestamp) => {

    let formData = new FormData();
    formData.append('fileData', fileObjBuffer);
    formData.append('myId', myId);
    formData.append('fileName', timestamp);

    let options = {
        method: 'POST',
        uri: '<URL>',
        formData: formData,
        headers: {
            'Access-Control-Allow-Origin': '*',
            'enctype': 'multipart/form-data',
            'Content-Type': 'application/json',
            'Access-Control-Allow-Methods': 'GET,POST,OPTIONS,DELETE,PUT'
        },
        json: true
    };
    try {
        let apiResult = await requestPromise(options).promise();
        console.log('\n\napiResult: ', apiResult);
    } catch (error) {
        console.log('error in sending to api: ',error);
    } 
}

var fetchAllData = async () => {
    let query = 'select * from demo_db.demo_table;';
    let fileObject = "";
    var result;
    try {
        //cassandra query
        result = await client.execute(query, [], { prepare: true });
    } catch (error) {
        console.log('error in fetching data from Cassandra: ',error);
    }
    result.rows.forEach(resultObj => {
        fileObject = fileObject +resultObj['room_id'] +":"+resultObj['message_id']+":"+resultObj['original_message'] +":"+resultObj['send_date'] +":"+  resultObj['sender'] +"%";
    });
    let fileObjBuffer = new Buffer(fileObject);
    let myId = uuidv4();
    let timestamp = date.format(new Date(), 'YYYYMMMDDhhmmss', false);  
    sendToAPI(fileObjBuffer,myId,timestamp);
}

My error:

error in sending to api:  TypeError: Cannot read property 'name' of null
at FormData._getContentDisposition (/home/bhushan/NodeJS-Scheduler/node_modules/request/node_modules/form-data/lib/form_data.js:226:40)
at FormData._multiPartHeader (/home/bhushan/NodeJS-Scheduler/node_modules/request/node_modules/form-data/lib/form_data.js:177:33)
at FormData.append (/home/bhushan/NodeJS-Scheduler/node_modules/request/node_modules/form-data/lib/form_data.js:70:21)
at appendFormValue (/home/bhushan/NodeJS-Scheduler/node_modules/request/request.js:326:21)
at Request.init (/home/bhushan/NodeJS-Scheduler/node_modules/request/request.js:337:11)
at Request.RP$initInterceptor [as init] (/home/bhushan/NodeJS-Scheduler/node_modules/request-promise-core/configure/request2.js:45:29)
at new Request (/home/bhushan/NodeJS-Scheduler/node_modules/request/request.js:127:8)
at request (/home/bhushan/NodeJS-Scheduler/node_modules/request/index.js:53:10)
at sendToAPI (/home/bhushan/NodeJS-Scheduler/schedulerTest.js:52:25)
at fetchAllData (/home/bhushan/NodeJS-Scheduler/schedulerTest.js:95:2)
at process._tickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:68:7)

Please help me to solve this issue.

• javascript
• node.js
• multipartform-data
• form-data
• request-promise

Share Improve this question Follow edited Apr 5, 2023 at 23:26 benomatis 5,64377 gold badges3939 silver badges6060 bronze badges asked Dec 30, 2019 at 8:21 Bhushan MahajanBhushan Mahajan 17133 gold badges33 silver badges1414 bronze badges 9

• The code what you have pasted doesn't contain the error part. The error states that name of null means you are trying to access name of null which may be an object or array, so paste your full code otherwise its difficult – Subburaj Commented Dec 30, 2019 at 8:25
• See stackoverflow./questions/44597174/… – user9572013 Commented Dec 30, 2019 at 8:29
• @Subburaj, I have just written another simple function fetchAllData to create fileName, myId, and fileObjBuffer values and then called sendToAPI() from fetchAllData. – Bhushan Mahajan Commented Dec 30, 2019 at 8:34
• Hi, @VictorF, I have seen the post but I didn't understand, how to implement it in my case. – Bhushan Mahajan Commented Dec 30, 2019 at 8:38
• Is this all of your code? – user9572013 Commented Dec 30, 2019 at 8:39

 |  Show 4 more ments

3 Answers 3

Sorted by: Reset to default 2

request-promise internally handles form-data. Therefore no need to use form-data explicitly. Instead I made normal object in following way:

var formData = {
    fileData: {
        value: fileObjBuffer,
        filename: timestamp
    },
    fileName: timestamp,
    myId: myId
}

This issue arises because in the formData key of requestPromise method you do not need to actually pass formData but an object.

request-promise internally creates formData from the object passed.

let formData = {
  fileData: fileObjBuffer,
  fileName: timestamp,
  myId: myId
}

let options = {
    method: 'POST',
    uri: '<URL>',
    formData: formData, // formData here is an object
    headers: {
        'Access-Control-Allow-Origin': '*',
        'enctype': 'multipart/form-data',
        'Content-Type': 'application/json',
        'Access-Control-Allow-Methods': 'GET,POST,OPTIONS,DELETE,PUT'
    },
    json: true
};

I did not find any good solution. So, I have added a function which will test if the value is empty or not. if it is empty then don't add it into the formData object else add it.

const FormData = z.require('form-data');

const form = new FormData();

const addFormData = (key, value) => {
    
  // If value is an array
  if(Array.isArray(value) && value.length > 0) {
    form.append(key, JSON.stringify(value));
    return;
  }
  
  // If value is string or number
  if(value) {
    form.append(key, value);
  }
  
  // TODO: You can add aditional checks if you would like to verify if it is non-empty object etc
  
} 

addFormData('name', 'Rahul')
addFormData('age', 28)