Express not routing javascript files when URL has multiple directories - node.js

I'm setting up a server backend in express for a React application which is using React-Router v4. So far, I've set up Express so that any request is redirected to index.html, allowing React Router to do the rest of the work. This works for the routes '/beats', '/loops', '/kits', etc. The problem arises when there are multiple directories in the url, such as with the url '/beats/1/name-of-beat' (which is parsed as '/beats/:id/:name?' in react-router).
Using this express code:
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, '../frontend/build')));
app.get('/*', (req, res) => {
res.sendFile(path.join(__dirname, '../frontend/build/index.html'));
});
This will redirect all requests to /kit, /beats, and the like to index.html, and all the <script> sources will still work. However, when trying to reach '/beats/1/name', index.html is served, but the <script> tags are also served the index.html, resulting in index.html loading in the browser but none of the javascript.
This happens if I add any other directories to the url in addition to the first, so '/beats/example' or '/beats/1/2/3' but not for '/example' (which would correctly show the 404 configured in react-router).
If it's needed, here's the router code:
<Router>
<div className="App">
<Header />
<Switch>
<Route exact path="/" component={Home} />
<Route path="/kits" component={Kits} />
<Route exact path="/beats" component={Beats} />
<Route path="/beats/:id/:beatName?" component={SoundPage} />
<Route path="/loops" component={Loops} />
<Route path="/contact" component={Contact} />
<Route component={NoMatch} />
</Switch>
</div>
</Router>
Here's the built index.html script tags:
<script src="./static/js/1.731b4af1.chunk.js"></script>
<script src="./static/js/main.498cadba.chunk.js"></script>
And here's the project structure:
-frontend
-build
-static
-index.html
-src
-public
-backend
-server.js

Long story short, your nested routes will need to use the match property. Your routes will be nested in a drop-down structure, where each successive Route will be included within the next matching Component's render method. Watch this video to understand what I mean:
React Router V4 Nested Routes
An alternative to using dynamic nested routes, would be to use a query parameter structure, where /beats/:query would be /beat/find?id=12345&beatName="Example Beat", which you can find an example here:
React Router V4 Nested Routes Match Params Not Accessible At Root Level
The first example is more common in forums (like Reddit), while the second example is more common in web store-fronts (like Amazon).

Related

Is react-router messing with the API Url?

I have a API that works fine, but when i use it with react, the get request goes to
/api/profile/posts/profile/matt
whereas it should go to:
/api/posts/profile/matt
The proxy is set on localhost:8000/api, that works fine for the other APIs when is working with react.
Code for calling the APIs(Only profile one doesn't work, rest all work fine, even the profile one works when I use the absolute URL):
const res = username
? await axios.get("posts/profile/"+username)
: await axios.get("posts/timeline/6120b0e07ea0361eb4982b1c");
code for routes:
function App() {
return (
<Router>
<Switch>
<Route exact path="/">
<Home />
</Route>
<Route path="/login">
<Login />
</Route>
<Route path="/register">
<Register />
</Route>
<Route path="/profile/:username">
<Profile />
</Route>
</Switch>
</Router>
)
}
I have similar problem with this user as well: How to prevent React-router from messing up your API url
when you call an API, you need to pass a full path URL to the fetch or axios to work properly, but there are some points that need to be mentioned.
All APIs have two parts: a base URL (which is not changing) + other parts
For example:
https://someAddress.com/api/posts/profile/matt
The base URL is https://someAddress.com/api/ here.
The Axios take a baseURL parameter to call your API's without specifying on every API call:
axios.defaults.baseURL = 'https://somwAddress.com/api/;
Now, simply call your API:
axios.get("posts/profile/" + username)
It requests to the full URL: https://someAddress.com/api/posts/profile/username
You should provide the full URL in axios.get() method.
for example- "HTTP://localhost:port/api_path".
Why only profile API messing with you because you have a profile route mentioned in your router
<Route path="/profile/:username">
<Profile />
</Route>
You are not using any wild card routes if you would have It would create problem with every api

Why cant my React App handle links to one of its routes?

Edit: For anyone coming here from Google, here is a TLDR: The reason for this "issue" is that React uses client side rendering. A quick solution is to use the HashRouter component, an SEO friendly solution is to use server side rendering(SSR). I switched to using NextJS, an SSR React framework, and my concern is resolved. Pages refresh like normal, and favorites work as intended. Thanks to all in the comments.
Original Question:
I've tried to find the answer to this but maybe i'm not googling well enough. So I have a react app with multiple routes, one of the routes is /reset, I have routing set up in the App.tsx like so:
import { BrowserRouter as Router, Link, Route, Switch} from 'react-router-dom';
class App extends Component<IAppProps, IAppState> {
constructor(props: IAppProps) {
super(props);
this.state = {
loggedin: "false",
user: {
username: "",
email: ""
}
};
}
<Router>
<nav className="topnav">
<ul>
<li><Link to="/">Home</Link></li>
<li><Link to="/about">About Us</Link></li>
<li><Link to="/faq">FAQ</Link></li>
<li><Link to="/login">Login</Link></li>
</ul>
</nav>
<Switch>
<Route exact path="/">
<Home
text="This text was passed in as a prop"
/>
</Route>
<Route path="/login">
<Login
changeHandler={this.updateLoginInput}
/>
</Route>
<Route path="/register">
<Register
formSubmit={null}
/>
</Route>
<Route path="/forgotpassword">
<ForgotPassword
stateSetter={this.handleChange}
/>
</Route>
<Route path="/reset">
<Home/>
</Route>
</Route>
</Switch>
</Router>
Sorry for the bad indenting, the editor doesn't like tabs.
The links work fine but, when ever i manually type in the address bar localhost:3000/reset it just keeps spinning and eventually times out. Same with every other route in fact. I need this to work because im sending a password reset email that will contain a link to use, and currently it just keeps spinning when the link is clicked. What if someone were to favorite a route on my page like mysite.com/page1? It would keep spinning and then eventually time out.
I've tried to add a route on the server side with app.get() and a response.redirect() and redirect to the reset route, but Chrome blocked it as an unsafe redirect.
Does this functionality not work on localhost or is there something else i'm doing wrong?

Serving react over static server without having people running into 404

I have a react site serving over: https://aero.mysite.com/profile, and I use router and history.push/replace in my react app, making it possible to have pathname such as https://aero.mysite.com/profile/path?query=number. However, say if someone copy and paste this url to another person, he or she would get 404 because https://aero.mysite.com/profile/path doesn't actually exist over the static server... (I am using koa + file serving middleware I made). What are the solutions to this challenge?
If you are using BrowserRouter or something similar, replace it with hash router which adds a "#" between the web server path and frontend route
Browser router looks like this
http://example.com/about
while the hash router looks like this
http://example.com/#/about
This will prevent the UI routing from being processed by the web server
For more info read this article
import { HashRouter as Router, Route } from 'react-router-dom';
import App from './components/App';
import Home from './components/Home';
import About from './components/About';
import Services from './components/Services';
render((
<Router>
<div>
<Route exact path="/" component={Home} />
<Route path="/about" component={About} />
<Route path="/courses" component={Services} />
</div>
</Router>
), document.getElementById('root'));

React routing with express is working on page refresh

My project using express for server and React for frontEnd. Routes are like this
<Router >
<Switch>
<Route exact path="/" component={HomeContainer} />
<Route path="/women" component={SectionContainer} />
</Switch>
</Router>
To serve these routes my server js has
server.get('*', function(request, response) {
response.sendFile(path.resolve(__dirname, '../public', 'index.html'));
});
Page url http://localhost:3000/women is working only on page refresh, first time click on url is just changing the browser url with no page update. But on page refresh it is working perfectly fine.
Please suggest what i am missing.
I was having similar issue. I found HashRouter helpful than the BrowserRouter:
import { HashRouter as Router } from 'react-router-dom'
Using HasRouter will be working fine as it keeps state on every history data changes.

react + routing + security

I am building a web application with React and react-router and I would like to protect some routes of my React application with an existing external access management infrastructure (OpenAM).
I would like to protect the http://web.example.com:8080/myapp/#/user-profile url which means that only logged users can have access to this route.
I have some other routes which are public and any user can open them, for example http://web.example.com:8080/myapp/#/welcome.
The Access Management protects urls and if a user wants to open a protected url then a login form is shown by Access Management and after a successful login the original requested url will be displayed.
The problem here is that react-router adds the routing info after the '#' character and the above mentioned two different urls are same from the access manager point of view because they refer to the same web resource (/myapp). The different between these two urls appear after the '#' character.
I need to have real urls without '#' chars like this:
http://web.example.com:8080/myapp/user-profile
http://web.example.com:8080/myapp/welcome
Is there any way to use real url mappings with React?
Do you guys have any idea or workaround how to use real url routes with react?
Thanks.
UPDATE:
This is my code. The urls in the web browser look nice but I get a "about did not match any routes" error. Requested url: http://web.example.com:8080/myapp/about
import {Router, Route, IndexRoute, useRouterHistory} from 'react-router';
import {createHistory} from 'history';
const browserHistory = useRouterHistory(createHistory) ({
basename: '/myapp/'
});
ReactDOM.render(
<Router history={browserHistory}>
<Route path="/" component={MainLayout}>
<IndexRoute component={Home} />
<Route path="about" component={About} />
</Route>
</Router>
)
You could use browserHistory, as suggested in the comments, to get rid of the #-sign. If you want the root of your react-application to be /myapp/ instead of / you can try:
import {Router, Route, useRouterHistory} from 'react-router';
import {createHistory} from 'history';
const browserHistory = useRouterHistory(createHistory)({basename: '/myapp/'});
ReactDOM.render(
<Router history={browserHistory}>
...
</Router>
)

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