passing form data in a Google Cloud 'privileged environment' - html

Question

I'm using Node.js on Google cloud with Firebase Realtime Database.
I can write and read data from server.js to the actual Firebase real-time database.
const express = require ('express');
const path = require('path');
var firebase = require("firebase-admin");
var serviceAccount = require("./srverKey.json");//path to key file
//Instantiate express
const app = express();
//Set URL routes
app.use('/static', express.static('public'))
app.get('/', function(req, res){
res.sendFile(path.join(__dirname, '/index.html'));
})
//Instantiate firebase Admin
firebase.initializeApp({
credential: firebase.credential.cert(serviceAccount),
databaseURL: "https://something.firebaseio.com"
});
// Get a database reference to our posts
var db = firebase.database();
//create a sample message
var message = {text: 'hello', timestamp: new Date().toString()};
var ref = firebase.database().ref().child('node-client');
var logsRef = ref.child('logs');
var messagesRef = ref.child('messages');
//below .push creates a new record with a new key
var messageRef = messagesRef.push(message);
logsRef.child(messageRef.key).set(message);
logsRef.orderByKey().limitToLast(1).on('child_added', function(snap){
console.log('added', snap.val());
});
logsRef.on('child_removed', function(snap) {
console.log('removed', snap.val());
});
ref.child('logs').on('child_changed', function(snap) {
console.log('changed', snap.val());
});
ref.child('logs').on('value', function(snap) {
console.log('value', snap.val());
});
<form>
<label for="userId">User ID</label><br>
<input type="text" name="userId" id="userId"><br>
<label for="firstName">First Name</label><br>
<input type="text" name="firstName" id="firstName"><br>
<label for="lastName">Last Name</label><br>
<input type="text" name="lastName" id="lastName"><br>
<label for="age">Age</label><br>
<input type="number" name="age" id="age"><br>
<button id="addBtn" class="btn waves-effect waves-light">Add</button>
<button id="updateBtn" class="btn waves-effect waves-light">Update</button>
<button id="removeBtn" class="btn waves-effect red darken-1">Remove</button>
</form>
However I can't figure out how the hell people pass values from index.html to server.js in order to store them in firebase.
When you connect from a privileged environment (google cloud) you use different code to connect than when from your own server therefore the examples under:
https://firebase.google.com/docs/samples/
are useless to me. They connect from public HTML javascript to the database where as in a 'privileged environment' you connect from the server-side script.
how do you read the from data from server.js?
How do you call a function to read the form from the html?
In say PHP you would post the form to a link.

Answer 1

What I'm looking for here is middleware called 'body parser'
npm install body-parser

Answer 2

I am having the same issue; however, I think your comment and answer get it correct: you have to have a POST method on form submit, and this route and method can be accommodated by Express in server.js. You can then pass this data to Google Cloud.