Complex NodeJS / Express REGEX routing - node.js

Question

I'm trying to create a NodeJS Express API (route) which has the following characteristics:
It has a base path, in my case it is /web/views. This part is a static value and doesn't change for as long as the server is up.
I can do this as follows:
const BASE = '/web/views'; // defined externally/elsewhere
app.get(BASE, function handleRequest(req, res) {
// handle API request...
}
Next, I expect to be provided with a resource. Given the name of this resource, I locate a file and send it to the client.
I can do this as follows:
app.get(BASE + '/:resource', function handleRequest(req, res) {
var resource = req.params.resource;
// handle API request...
}
So on the client, I invoke it this way:
GET /web/views/header
All of this works so far... but my problem is that my 'resource' can actually be a path in itself, such as:
GET /web/views/menu/dashboard
or a longer path, such as:
GET /web/views/some/long/path/to/my/xyz
I was using the following REGEX mapping:
const DEFAULT_REGEX = '/(\*/)?:resource';
or more precisely:
app.get(BASE + DEFAULT_REGEX, function handleRequest(req, res) {
var resource = req.params.resource;
// handle API request...
}
This works with an arbitrary length path between my BASE value and the :resource identifier, but the problem is that my resource variable only has
the xyz portion of the path and not the full path (ie: /some/long/path/to/my/xyz).
I could simply cheat and strip the leading BASE from the req.url, but I though there would be a REGEX rule for it.
If anyone knows how to do such advanced REGEX routing, I'd appreciate it.
Thanks!

Answer 1

Sure, so I think the easiest way is to simply not worry about using Regex, but instead just use a wildcard. You lose the cool params name, but otherwise it works as you're looking for. For example:
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
const port = 3000;
const BASE = '/web/views'
app.get(`${BASE}/*`, (req, res) => {
res.send(req.url);
});
app.listen(port, () => console.log(`Example app listening on port ${port}!`))
If you hit http://localhost:3000/web/views/path/to/my/resource, in my example the response content will be /web/views/path/to/my/resource, so from there it's some simple string manipulation to pull the bit you want:
let resource = req.url.split('/web/views')[1];
// resource will equal /path/to/my/resource if the above URL is used
Of course you could get fancier with your string parsing to check for errors and such, but you get the idea.
You could even setup a middleware to get that resource piece for other handlers to work from:
app.use(`${BASE}/*`, (req, res, next) => {
const resource = req.url.split(BASE)[1];
req.resource = resource;
next();
});
Then all subsequent routes will have access to req.resource.