Single express route to capture all possible params combinations - node.js

Question

I want my API to support filtering on the different properties of my mongodb model. The brute force way of which I would use:
app.get('/api/thing/:id', thing.getThingById);
app.get('/api/thing/:name, thing.getThingByName);
app.get('/api/thing/:name/:color', thing.getThingByNameAndColor);
etc. This approach is obviously terrible. How can I add a single route to capture multiple params so that I can return things using something like
exports.getThingByParams = function (req, res, next) {
var query = thingModel.find (req.params);
query.exec (function (err, things) {
if (err) return next (err);
res.send ({
status: "200",
responseType: "array",
response: things
});
});
};

Answer 1

Use the URL query string. It's a set of name/value pairs invented for precisely this use case. It still works great after all these years despite current trends the everything must be in the path portion of the URL instead of the query string because ???. Look at your route - it even says "API" in it. It doesn't need to abuse the path to be "pretty" according to hipsters.
app.get('/api/thing', thing.search);
exports.search = function (req, res, next) {
//Remember any ID values need to be converted from strings to ObjectIDs,
//and there's probably additional sanitization/normalization to do here
var query = thingModel.find (req.query);
query.exec (function (err, things) {
if (err) return next (err);
res.send ({
status: "200",
responseType: "array",
response: things
});
});
};
Then the url to find a red thing named candy would look like
/api/thing?color=red&name=candy

Answer 2

Yup, you can. Just use the most explicit route example:
app.get('/api/thing/:name/:color', thing.getThingByProperty);
and inside getThingByProperty simply test for req.params.YourParam (name or color) and decide what to do. If color is requested but not name, you send in the url as follows:
/api/thing/-/red.
Very common sighting to have null params in routes expressed as dash.
OR, different approach, better pattern more API like (RESTFul) is:
/api/thing/:id that's by id and to offer pattern support
and for different property search use:
/api/things/search?property1=value&property2=value
That way you respect the collection pattern in your API (/api/things) and put the search in the query to keep it flexible. Test inside the search callback for req.query.property1 or property and act accordingly