---
title: req.body
summary: null
url: >-
  https://www.fastly.com/documentation/reference/vcl/variables/client-request/req-body
---

**Type:** STRING  
**Access:** read-only

**Available in:** all subroutines

The request body. Using this variable for binary data will truncate at the 
first null character. Limited to 8KB in size. 

Exceeding the limit results in the `req.body` variable being blank, which returns a _not set_ value. If this happens it can be detected with the following VCL:

```vcl
if (std.atoi(req.http.Content-Length) > 0 && std.strlen(req.body) == 0 && req.method == "POST") {
  // Body has been truncated
}
```

The variable `req.postbody` is an alias for `req.body`.