Cannot use express-session in separate route handler - node.js

Question

I'm trying to use the express session middleware in a separate route handler but the compiler complains that the property 'session' does not exist on type 'Request'.
app.ts
import debug = require('debug');
import express = require('express');
import path = require('path');
import db = require('diskdb');
import bodyParser = require('body-parser');
import session = require('express-session');
import fileStore = require('session-file-store');
import routes from './routes/index/index';
import users from './routes/user';
import register from './routes/users/register';
import login from './routes/users/login';
var app = express();
//Setup sesssion middleware
var sessionFileStore = fileStore(session);
app.use(session({
name: 'server-session-cookie-id',
secret: 'my express secret',
saveUninitialized: true,
resave: true,
store: new sessionFileStore()
}));
//Here we are configuring express to use body-parser as middle-ware.
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended: false }));
app.use(bodyParser.json());
// view engine setup
app.set('views', path.join(__dirname, 'views'));
app.set('view engine', 'pug');
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));
app.use('/', routes);
app.use('/users', users);
app.use('/register', session, register);
app.use('/login', session, login);
// catch 404 and forward to error handler
app.use(function (req, res, next) {
var err = new Error('Not Found');
err['status'] = 404;
next(err);
});
// error handlers
// development error handler
// will print stacktrace
if (app.get('env') === 'development') {
app.use((err: any, req, res, next) => {
res.status(err['status'] || 500);
res.render('error', {
message: err.message,
error: err
});
});
}
// production error handler
// no stacktraces leaked to user
app.use((err: any, req, res, next) => {
res.status(err.status || 500);
res.render('error', {
message: err.message,
error: {}
});
});
app.set('port', process.env.PORT || 3000);
var server = app.listen(app.get('port'), function () {
debug('Express server listening on port ' + server.address().port);
});
login.ts
import express = require('express');
import path = require('path');
import bcrypt = require('bcrypt');
const router = express.Router();
router.get('/', (req: express.Request, res: express.Response) => {
res.render(path.join(__dirname, 'login'), { message: 'display login form', username: '' });
});
router.post('/', (req: express.Request, res: express.Response) => {
var un = req.body.username;
var pw = req.body.password;
var db = require('diskdb');
db = db.connect('db', ['users']);
var existing = db.users.findOne({ username: un });
var all = db.users.find();
bcrypt.compare(pw, existing != null ? existing.password : '', function (err, hashres) {
// res == true
if (hashres) {
res.render(path.join(__dirname, 'login'), {
message: ('handle login form submission for ' + un),
username: un,
result: "the username " + un + " is now logged in.",
resulttype: "success"
});
req.session.user = un;
}
else {
res.render(path.join(__dirname, 'login'), {
message: ('handle login form submission for ' + un),
username: un,
result: "the username and password combination is incorrect.",
resulttype: "error"
});
}
});
});
export default router;
All the examples I've found online say that this is supposed to work, though most don't use a separate file for the route hander...

Answer 1

In your app.ts replace these lines of code
app.use('/register', session, register);
app.use('/login', session, login);
to
app.use('/register', register);
app.use('/login', login);
updated:
try update your code of setup session store by this example
var session = require('express-session');
var FileStore = require('session-file-store')(session);
app.use(session({
store: new FileStore(options),
...
}));
if still not work, express-session has a default session store, use the default session store and check if there still a compiler error.

Answer 2

On a hunch I tried to create the same project without TypeScript and it worked. Once I knew that TS was the culprit it was quite straight forward to find that I had to import an additional node package: #types/express-session