How to Make POST redirect in -Node Js

2 min readJul 23, 2024

To achieve a POST redirect (POST-to-POST) in Node.js using Express, you’ll need to use a combination of client-side JavaScript and server-side routing. Unfortunately, HTTP does not directly support redirecting a POST request to another POST endpoint. However, you can work around this limitation by using a client-side script to perform the second POST request after the initial one is handled.

Here’s a step-by-step guide to achieve this:

Set up the Express server:

const express = require('express');
const app = express();
const bodyParser = require('body-parser');

// Middleware to parse the body of the request
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended: true }));
app.use(bodyParser.json());

// POST route for initial form submission
app.post('/submit', (req, res) => {
    const data = req.body;
    console.log('Received data:', data);

    // Send a response that includes a script to perform the second POST request
    res.send(`
        <html>
            <body>
                <form id="redirectForm" method="post" action="/thank-you">
                    <input type="hidden" name="data" value='${JSON.stringify(data)}' />
                </form>
                <script>
                    document.getElementById('redirectForm').submit();
                </script>
            </body>
        </html>
    `);
});

// POST route for the thank you page
app.post('/thank-you', (req, res) => {
    const data = req.body;
    res.send('Thank you for your submission! Received data: ' + JSON.stringify(data));
});

// Start the server
const PORT = process.env.PORT || 3000;
app.listen(PORT, () => {
    console.log(`Server is running on port ${PORT}`);
});

Explanation:

Initial POST Route: The /submit route handles the initial POST request. It processes the form data and then sends an HTML response that contains a form with the same data, and a script that automatically submits this form to the /thank-you route using the POST method.
Second POST Route: The /thank-you route handles the second POST request and sends a thank-you message along with the received data.

Testing: You can test this setup by sending a POST request to /submit using an HTML form or a tool like Postman. The server will handle the request and then automatically redirect to the /thank-you route with a POST request.

Here’s an example HTML form to test the initial POST request:

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html>
<head>
    <title>POST Redirect Example</title>
</head>
<body>
    <form action="/submit" method="post">
        <label for="name">Name:</label>
        <input type="text" id="name" name="name" required>
        <button type="submit">Submit</button>
    </form>
</body>
</html>

Save this HTML in a file (e.g., index.html), serve it from your server, or open it directly in your browser to test the flow.

How to Make POST redirect in -Node Js

Written by Romik Makavana