Routes not processed - node.js

Question

I've got a node.js (server) and backbone.js (client) app - I can load and init my backbone app on a page... and init the router, but my default route (".*") is not getting called. I can manually call the index function after I initialize the router, but I don't have to take that step when I've built backbone apps over rails.
Does anyone have a clue as to why this is happening?
adding code (in coffeescript):
class NodeNetBackbone.Routers.RegistryPatients extends Backbone.Router
routes:
'' : 'index'
'.*' : 'index'
'/index' : 'index'
'/:id' : 'show'
'/new' : 'new'
'/:id/edit' : 'edit'
initialize: ->
console.log 'init the router'
#registry_patients = new NodeNetBackbone.Collections.RegistryPatients()
# TODO: Figure out why this isn't sticking...
#registry_patients.model = NodeNetBackbone.Models.RegistryPatient
# TODO: Try to only round trip once on initial load
# #registry_patients.reset($('#container_data').attr('data'))
#registry_patients.fetch()
# TODO: SSI - why are the routes not getting processed?
this.index()
index: ->
console.log 'made it to the route index'
view = new NodeNetBackbone.Views.RegistryPatients.Index(collection: #registry_patients)
# $('#container').html('<h1>Patients V3: (Backbone):</h1>')
$('#container').html(view.render().el)

Answer 1

Backbone routes are not regexes (unless you manually add a regex route using route). From the fine manual:
Routes can contain parameter parts, :param, which match a single URL component between slashes; and splat parts *splat, which can match any number of URL components.
[...] A route of "file/*path" will match #file/nested/folder/file.txt, passing "nested/folder/file.txt" to the action.
And if we check the source, we'll see this:
// Backbone.Router
// -------------------
//...
// Cached regular expressions for matching named param parts and splatted
// parts of route strings.
var namedParam = /:\w+/g;
var splatParam = /\*\w+/g;
So your '.*' route should only match a literal '.*' rather than matching "anything" as you're expecting.
I think you want something more like this:
routes:
'' : 'index'
#...
'*path' : 'index'
Make sure your *path route is at the bottom of your route list:
// Bind all defined routes to `Backbone.history`. We have to reverse the
// order of the routes here to support behavior where the most general
// routes can be defined at the bottom of the route map.
This assumption about the "order" of elements in an object seems rather dangerous and ill-considered to me as there is no guaranteed order:
The mechanics and order of enumerating the properties (step 6.a in the first algorithm, step 7.a in the second) is not specified.
I think you'd be better off adding your default *path route manually in your initialize method:
class NodeNetBackbone.Routers.RegistryPatients extends Backbone.Router
routes:
'' : 'index'
'/index' : 'index'
'/:id' : 'show'
'/new' : 'new'
'/:id/edit' : 'edit'
initialize: ->
console.log 'init the router'
#route '*path', 'index'
#...