let {name, description} = req.body;

NodeJS v5.2.0. Tried using flags - node bin/www --es_staging --harmony_destructuring. Throws an error: SyntaxError: Unexpected token {... Should I pile source using Babel, or is there any other way to use ES6 natively in NodeJS?

let {name, description} = req.body;

NodeJS v5.2.0. Tried using flags - node bin/www --es_staging --harmony_destructuring. Throws an error: SyntaxError: Unexpected token {... Should I pile source using Babel, or is there any other way to use ES6 natively in NodeJS?

• javascript
• node.js
• express
• ecmascript-6

• 1 I think this isn't supported yet on Node 5.0. Babel does seem to support that according to this – MinusFour Commented Dec 19, 2015 at 16:52
• 1 I remend to read the official documentation, which would have answered your question: nodejs/en/docs/es6 – Felix Kling Commented Dec 19, 2015 at 17:56

1 Answer 1

Destructuring assigments are not supported by default in Node 5.2.0, but it will work if you enable it with node --harmony_destructuring.

However let is only supported in strict mode for now.
This is a V8 issue, and Node version 5.0.0, which will include V8 version 4.6 will also support let in sloppy mode.

Using let in sloppy mode at the moment, will throw the exact same error you're getting, so :

"use strict"

let {name, description} = {name: "some name", description : "some description"};

works fine in Node 5.2.0, note that the object, in your case req.body, must have the same keys as the variable names, otherwise they'll be undefined.