Dumb/Newb question...
I am learning/working on an API in Node / Express4 and I would like to break my routes out into another module. I have it working with the following code, but it seems awkward to me to keep re-using the require('express') statement... Is there a way to move more of the code from the routes.js file into server.js and still keep my .get and .post statements in the routes module? Thanks in advance!
server.js:
'use strict';
var express = require('express');
var routes = require('./routes');
var app = express();
app.use('/api', routes);
app.listen(3000, function() {
console.log('Listening);
});
routes.js
var express = require('express'); // how do I get rid of this line?
var router = express.Router(); // can I move this to server.js?
var apiRoute = router.route('');
apiRoute.get(function (req, res) {
res.send('api GET request received');
});
module.exports = router;
Your on the right track. Its actually cool to reuse the var express = require('express'); statement each time you need it. Importing, ( requiring ), modules is a cornerstone of modular development and allows you to maintain a separation of concerns with in the files of your project.
As far as modularly adding routes is concerned: The issue is that routes.js is misleading.
In order to modularly separate out your routes you should use several modules named <yourResource>.js. Those modules would contain all of the routing code as well as any other configuration or necessary functions. Then you would attach them in app.js with:
var apiRoute = router.route('/api');
apiRoute.use('/<yourResource', yourResourceRouter);
For example, if you had a resource bikes:
In app.js or even a module api.js:
var apiRoute = router.route('/api')
, bikeRoutes = require('./bikes');
apiRoute.use('/bikes', bikeRoutes);
Then in bike.js:
var express = require('express');
var router = express.Router();
var bikeRoutes = router.route('/');
bikeRoutes.get(function (req, res) {
res.send('api GET request received');
});
module.exports = bikeRoutes;
From there its easy to see that you can build many different resources and continually nest them.
Related
I currently have an Express server I'm using for a mobile app which is structured as follows (server.js):
const PostRouter = require('./api/production/Post');
const UserRouter = require('./api/production/User');
...
app.use('/posts', PostRouter)
app.use('/users', UserRouter)
and then in api/production/Post I have:
router.get('/fetch', (req, res) => {
...
}
router.get('/delete', (req, res) => {
...
}
etc..
However, I would really like to rebuild the server to match the structure of my corresponding NextJS app and its API structure, which would be something like:
/api/posts/
add-post/
index.js
fetch-all/
index.js
edit-post/
index.js
Where each index.js file contains just one endpoint/query instead of the current structure where each file has multiple queries with the router.get thing.
It looks like this is possible by creating a Router for each endpoint with something like:
const PostFetchAllRouter = require('./api/posts/fetch-all');
const PostEditPostRouter = require('./api/posts/edit-post');
...
app.use('posts/fetch-all', PostFetchAllRouter)
app.use('posts/edit-post', PostEditPostRouter)
What would be the best way to do this, please? Is there an easier way to do this without all the boilerplate in the server.js file? I'm very new to Express - please excuse if it's a naive question
You could move the "boilerplate" code to the different router files and build a router chain. But you have to write a little bit more.
server.js
|-api/
|--posts/
|---PostsRouter.js
|---fetchAll.js
|--users/
|---UserRouter.js
fetchAll.js
const express = require("express");
const FetchAll = express.Router();
FetchAll.get("/fetch", (req, res) => { res.send("/posts/fetch") });
module.exports = FetchAll;
PostsRouter.js
const express = require("express");
const FetchAll = require("./fetchAll");
const PostsRouter = express.Router();
PostsRouter.use(FetchAll);
module.exports = PostsRouter;
server.js
const express = require('express');
const PostsRouter = require("./api/posts/PostsRouter");
let app = express();
app.use("/posts", PostsRouter);
app.listen(80, () => {});
If you build it like that you would plug the small routers into the next bigger one and then use them in the server.js.
GET localhost/posts/fetch HTTP/1.1
// returns in my example the string "/posts/fetch"
Is that what you were looking for?
I am playing with node.js and I don't quite understand why something I set up is working in one instance but if I make a slight change it will not work in another instance.
in my app.js I have
app.use('/musicplayer', require('./routes/music/index'));
in my music\index.js I have
var express = require('express');
var router = express.Router();
router.use('/users', require('./users'));
module.exports = router;
in my users.js I have this - working version
var express = require('express');
var usersRouter = express.Router();
var sqllite3 = require('sqlite3').verbose();
usersRouter.get('/login', function(req, res, next) {
res.render('music/login', { title: 'Express' });
});
module.exports = usersRouter;
But I would like to encapsulate the routes I am defining into another function like this not working this just hangs the page.
Modified version of my users.js not working
var express = require('express');
var usersRouter = express.Router();
var sqllite3 = require('sqlite3').verbose();
var router = function () {
usersRouter.get('/login', function (req, res, next) {
res.render('music/login', {title: 'Express'});
});
return usersRouter;
}
module.exports = router;
In the console I can see it comes in tries the get and nevers gets routed I see this "GET /musicplayer/users/login - - ms - -".
I have even put a console.log right before the return in the anonymous function I created to know it is getting in there and that I am hooking the pathways up right from the parent routes. And I do hit that log action to the screen.
Any help or tips would be appreciated:)
PS in case you are wondering I am trying to separate out apps for different development work I want to play with. So that is why I am doing the sub routing with musicplayer/index.js instead of just putting everything in the app.js for declaring of my main routes.
Router.use() expects an instance of another Router. However your (non-working) module only returns a function.
Use this in your index.js to fix the issue:
router.use('/users', require('./users')());
I have used the express generator plugin and I had all my routes generated on routes/index.js but I'm doing a refactor now and I'm putting all of the routes in it's respective router files. The thing is that the 'pg' module works fine if I put my code on the index.js :
index.js
var express = require('express');
var router = express.Router();
var pg = require('pg');
var connectionString = 'postgres://postgres:postgres#localhost:5432/dataDB';
router.use('/api/events', require('./events'))
/* GET home page. */
router.get('/', function(req, res, next) {
res.render('index', { title: 'Express' });
});
module.exports = router;
Now if I request a route from the routes/events.js file I get a 'pg'(postgres driver) not defined
var express = require('express');
var router = express.Router();
var pg = require('pg');
var connectionString = 'postgres://postgres:postgres#localhost:5432/dataDB';
//get all events from a user
router.get('/user/id/:id_user', function(req, res) {
.....
});
router.post('/friends/', function(req, res) {
........
});
module.exports = router
And the app.js only includes the router/index.js file ......How can I solve this?. The requests are getting to the router/events.js file correctly, but it's just not recognizing the 'pg' module require......Thank you very much
The problem was that I was including
var pg = require('pg');
in both routes/index.js and in routes/events.js
I removed that line from the index.js and left it only in event.js and now it works perfectly. That require is going in the model layer anyway, but now that I fixed it I would like to know why requiring something on one script and then requiring something on another script fails on express given the fact that I included express and the router in both files and those 2 lines didn't fail but the mentioned line did......
I'm building a web app with Express and Node and am trying to factor my routing so that I don't have hundreds of routes in the same file. This site serves different files within the projects directory, so I made a file in routes/ called projectRoutes.jsto handle the routing for project files:
var express = require('express');
module.exports = function() {
var functions = {}
functions.routeProject = function(req, res) {
res.render('pages/projects/' + req.params.string, function(err, html) {
if (err) {
res.send("Sorry! Page not found!");
} else {
res.send(html);
}
});
};
return functions;
}
Then, in my routes.js, I have this...
var projectRoutes = require("./projectRoutes");
router.get('/projects/:string', function(req, res) {
projectRoutes().routeProject(req, res);
});
Is there a better way to structure this functionality within projectRoutes.js? In other words, how can I configure projectRoutes.js so that I can write the follow line of code in index.js:
router.get('/projects/:string', projectRoutes.routeProject);
The above seems like the normal way to handle something like this, but currently the above line throws an error in Node that says the function is undefined.
Thanks for your help!
You should use the native express router, it was made to solve this exact problem! It essentially lets you create simplified nested routes in a modular way.
For each of your resources, you should separate out your routes into several modules named <yourResource>.js. Those modules would contain all of the routing code as well as any other configuration or necessary functions. Then you would attach them in index.js with:
var apiRoute = router.route('/api')
apiRoute.use('/< yourResource >', yourResourceRouter)
For example, if you had a resource bikes:
In index.js:
var apiRoute = router.route('/api')
, bikeRoutes = require('./bikes')
apiRoute.use('/bikes', bikeRoutes)
Then in bike.js:
var express = require('express')
, router = express.Router()
, bikeRoutes = router.route('/')
bikeRoutes.get(function (req, res) {
res.send('api GET request received')
});
module.exports = bikeRoutes
From there its easy to see that you can build many different resources and continually nest them.
A larger of example of connecting the routes in index.js would be:
var apiRoute = router.route('/api')
, bikeRoutes = require('./bikes')
, carRoutes = require('./cars')
, skateboardRoutes = require('./skateboards')
, rollerskateRoutes = require('./rollerskates')
// routes
apiRoute.use('/bikes', bikeRoutes)
apiRoute.use('/cars', carRoutes)
apiRoute.use('/skateboards', skateboardRoutes)
apiRoute.use('/rollerskates', rollerskateRoutes)
Each router would contain code similar to bikes.js. With this example its easy to see using express's router modularizes and makes your code base more manageable.
Another option is to use the Router object itself, instead of the Route object.
In Index.js:
//Load Routes
BikeRoutes = require('./routes/Bike.js');
CarRoutes = require('./routes/Car.js');
//Routers
var express = require('express');
var ApiRouter = express.Router();
var BikeRouter = express.Router();
var CarRouter = express.Router();
//Express App
var app = express();
//App Routes
ApiRouter.get('/Api', function(req, res){...});
ApiRouter.use('/', BikeRouter);
ApiRouter.use('/', CarRouter);
In Bike.js:
var express = require('express');
var router = express.Router();
router.get('/Bikes', function(req, res){...});
module.exports = router;
Similarly in Car.js
I have the following files
lib/pub
lib/pub/index.js
app.js
On App.js
I have:
// app.js
var express = require("express")
, app = express()
, router = express.Router()
;
...
router.use('/pub',require('./pub'));
and then on index.js
// pub/index.js
var express = require('express')
, router = express.Router()
;
console.log("file loaded successfully")
module.exports = function(){
router.get('/',function(req,res){
console.log("got the get request")
})
}
The problem I have when I do localhost/pub request, I never get the got the get request, no matter whatever I try to change the code around, trying to add pub to the path.
router.get('/',...
router.get('/pub',...
router.get('./pub,...
router.get('./',...
router.get('pub',...
etc...
None of those or any other silly way I have attempted work... I can never get the log to say yes I got the request...
What am I doing wrong ! (expressjs changes so frequently and radically, any web tutorials become redundant or any previous help others got)
(edited to reflect comments)
If you want to move your routes to an external file, use the following pattern:
app.js
var express = require('express');
var app = express();
require('./routes')(app);
routes.js
module.exports = function(app) {
app.get('/pub', function(req, res) {
console.log('got the get!');
res.end();
});
};