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context.md

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Context

A Strapi Context encapsulates Node's request and response objects into a single object which provides many helpful methods for writing web applications and APIs.

These operations are used so frequently in HTTP server development that they are added at this level instead of a higher level framework, which would force middleware to re-implement this common functionality.

A Context is created per request, and is referenced in middleware as the receiver, or the this identifier, as shown in the following snippet:

strapi.app.use(function * () {
  this; // is the Context
  this.request; // is a Strapi Request
  this.response; // is a Strapi Response
});

Many of the context's accessors and methods simply delegate to their ctx.request or ctx.response equivalents for convenience, and are otherwise identical. For example ctx.type and ctx.length delegate to the response object, and ctx.path and ctx.method delegate to the request.

API

Context specific methods and accessors.

ctx.req

Node's request object.

ctx.res

Node's response object.

Bypassing Strapi's response handling is not supported. Avoid using the following Node properties:

  • res.statusCode
  • res.writeHead()
  • res.write()
  • res.end()

ctx.request

A Strapi Request object.

ctx.response

A Strapi Response object.

ctx.state

The recommended namespace for passing information through middleware and to your front-end views.

this.state.user = yield User.find(id);

ctx.app

Application instance reference.

ctx.cookies.get(name, [options])

Get cookie name with options:

  • signed the cookie requested should be signed

Strapi uses the cookies module where options are simply passed.

ctx.cookies.set(name, value, [options])

Set cookie name to value with options:

  • signed sign the cookie value
  • expires a Date for cookie expiration
  • path cookie path, /' by default
  • domain cookie domain
  • secure secure cookie
  • httpOnly server-accessible cookie, true by default

Strapi uses the cookies module where options are simply passed.

ctx.throw([msg], [status], [properties])

Helper method to throw an error with a .status property defaulting to 500 that will allow Strapi to respond appropriately. The following combinations are allowed:

this.throw(403);
this.throw('name required', 400);
this.throw(400, 'name required');
this.throw('something exploded');

For example this.throw('name required', 400) is equivalent to:

const err = new Error('name required');
err.status = 400;
throw err;

Note that these are user-level errors and are flagged with err.expose meaning the messages are appropriate for client responses, which is typically not the case for error messages since you do not want to leak failure details.

You may optionally pass a properties object which is merged into the error as-is, useful for decorating machine-friendly errors which are reported to the requester upstream.

this.throw(401, 'access_denied', { user: user });
this.throw('access_denied', { user: user });

Strapi uses http-errors to create errors.

ctx.assert(value, [msg], [status], [properties])

Helper method to throw an error similar to .throw() when !value. Similar to Node's assert() method.

this.assert(this.state.user, 401, 'User not found. Please login!');

Strapi uses http-assert for assertions.

ctx.respond

To bypass Strapi's built-in response handling, you may explicitly set this.respond = false;. Use this if you want to write to the raw res object instead of letting Strapi handle the response for you.

Note that using this is not supported by Strapi. This may break intended functionality of Strapi middleware and Strapi itself. Using this property is considered a hack and is only a convenience to those wishing to use traditional fn(req, res) functions and middleware within Strapi.

Request aliases

The following accessors and alias Request equivalents:

  • ctx.header
  • ctx.headers
  • ctx.method
  • ctx.method=
  • ctx.url
  • ctx.url=
  • ctx.originalUrl
  • ctx.origin
  • ctx.href
  • ctx.path
  • ctx.path=
  • ctx.query
  • ctx.query=
  • ctx.querystring
  • ctx.querystring=
  • ctx.host
  • ctx.hostname
  • ctx.fresh
  • ctx.stale
  • ctx.socket
  • ctx.protocol
  • ctx.secure
  • ctx.ip
  • ctx.ips
  • ctx.subdomains
  • ctx.is()
  • ctx.accepts()
  • ctx.acceptsEncodings()
  • ctx.acceptsCharsets()
  • ctx.acceptsLanguages()
  • ctx.get()

Response aliases

The following accessors and alias Response equivalents:

  • ctx.body
  • ctx.body=
  • ctx.status
  • ctx.status=
  • ctx.message
  • ctx.message=
  • ctx.length=
  • ctx.length
  • ctx.type=
  • ctx.type
  • ctx.headerSent
  • ctx.redirect()
  • ctx.attachment()
  • ctx.set()
  • ctx.append()
  • ctx.remove()
  • ctx.lastModified=
  • ctx.etag=