Jade URL Routing in Node Express - node.js

Question

I am building a Node Express application using Jade, and I am confused about how to route my views to the specific requests the browser will make. I understand that in order to get URLs to work in the browser, we need to use Node's routes; however, from looking online, I have discovered that Express has its own router.
I used PHPStorm to start up my project, and the index.jade will load... but how do I load the others? Here is my existing code:
var express = require('express'), routes = require('./routes'), http = require('http'), path = require('path');
var app = express();
app.configure(function ()
{
app.set('port', process.env.PORT || 3000);
app.set('views', __dirname + '/views');
app.set('view engine', 'jade');
app.use(express.favicon());
app.use(express.logger('dev'));
app.use(express.bodyParser());
app.use(express.methodOverride());
app.use(express.cookieParser('your secret here'));
app.use(express.session());
app.use(app.router);
app.use(require('less-middleware')({ src:__dirname + '/public' }));
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));
});
app.configure('development', function ()
{
app.use(express.errorHandler());
});
app.get('/', routes.index);
http.createServer(app).listen(app.get('port'), function ()
{
console.log("Express server listening on port " + app.get('port'));
});
What is the most basic way to route my application, and where can I find more extensive documentation on this topic?
Thanks.

Answer 1

I understand that in order to get URLs to work in the browser,
we need to use Node's routes; however, from looking online,
I have discovered that Express has its own router.
Node.js per-se does not provide support for "routes", but Express does. You build your routes in Express using the following syntax:
app.[verb]('[url-path]', [handler]);
So your route app.get('/', routes.index) will process HTTP GET request to URL path / with the routes.index function. Express will automatically pass a request and response objects to your handler.
You can add more routes like this:
app.get('/users', routes.userList);
app.get('/user/:id', routes.userInfoView);
app.post('/user/:id', routes.userInfoSave);
You can find more information about this here http://expressjs.com/api.html#app.param
I am building a Node Express application using Jade, and I
am confused about how to route my views to the specific
requests the browser will make.
Once a route handler is invoked, say (routes.userList) you can call res.render() method inside userList to render the Jade file that you want. For example:
res.render('user_list',
{ users: [{name: "user1", age: 10}, {name: "user2", age: 20}] });
See here for more information: http://expressjs.com/api.html#res.render