javascript - Invalid shorthand property initializer

Question

I wrote the following code in JavaScript for a node project, but I ran into an error while testing a module. I'm not sure what the error means. Here's my code:

var http = require('http');
// makes an http request
var makeRequest = function(message) {
 var options = {
  host: 'localhost',
  port = 8080,
  path : '/',
  method: 'POST'
 }
 // make request and execute function on recieveing response
 var request = http.request(options, function(response) {
  response.on('data', function(data) {
    console.log(data);
  });
 });
 request.write(message);
 request.end();
}
module.exports = makeRequest;

When I try to run this module, it throws the following error:

$ node make_request.js
/home/pallab/Desktop/make_request.js:8
    path = '/',
    ^^^^^^^^^^
SyntaxError: Invalid shorthand property initializer
    at Object.exports.runInThisContext (vm.js:76:16)
    at Module._compile (module.js:542:28)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:579:10)
    at Module.load (module.js:487:32)
    at tryModuleLoad (module.js:446:12)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:438:3)
    at Module.runMain (module.js:604:10)
    at run (bootstrap_node.js:394:7)
    at startup (bootstrap_node.js:149:9)
    at bootstrap_node.js:509:3

I dont quite get what this means, and what I can do to resolve this.

Answer 1

Because it's an object, the way to assign value to its properties is using :.

Change the = to : to fix the error.

var options = {
  host: 'localhost',
  port: 8080,
  path: '/',
  method: 'POST'
 }