How to export all routes in Express? - node.js

Question

I have an NodeJS Express app that is getting really big in just one file (app.js).
I want to export all my routes into a single, external file, say ./lib/routes.js. How to do that?
How to export the following bit of code and require it correctly in main app.js?
app.get('/logout', function(req, res) {
res.render('logout', {
username: req.session.username
});
});
app.get('/dashboard', function(req, res) {
res.render('dashboard', {
username: req.session.username
});
});
app.get('/login', function(req, res) {
res.render('login', {
badLogin: false,
loginError: false
});
});

Answer 1

What I do is group my routes by controller. For each group of related routes (users, shopping cart, whatever), I make a controller file that lives in app/controllers/foo.js where foo is the controller name. In my main javascript server file (where all your code currently lives), I require each controller by name and then call its setup function, passing in my express app object, and allow the controller to add whatever routes it needs.
['api', 'authorization', 'users', 'tests'].map(function(controllerName) {
var controller = require('./controllers/' + controllerName);
controller.setup(app);
});
Inside each controller, I do something like:
exports.setup = function(app) {
app.get('/dashboard', function(req, res) {
res.render('dashboard', {
username: req.session.username
});
});
};

Answer 2

Why not do something like this:
// logout.js
module.exports = function(req, res){
res.render('logout', {
username: req.session.username
});
});
// dashboard.js
module.exports = function(req, res){
res.render('dashboard', {
username: req.session.username
});
});
// login.js
module.exports = function(req, res){
res.render('login', {
badLogin: false,
loginError: false
});
});
// app.js
app.get('/logout', require('logout'));
app.get('/dashboard', require('dashboard'));
app.get('/login', require('login'));
Also, you could imagine easily using http://nodejs.org/docs/v0.4.8/api/fs.html#fs.readdir to loop through a routes directory and load these up programmatically.
You could even do something along the lines of...
module.exports.handler[] = {
method : 'get',
route : '/login',
action : res.render('login', {
badLogin: false,
loginError: false
});
}
Though I think I'd spend a little time thinking about how to simplify that.

Answer 3

using glob you can export all routes on directory for example '/routes':
npm i --save glob
// *** /routes/index.js file ***
const express = require('express')
const Router = express.Router
const router = Router()
const glob = require('glob')
/**
* options ignore files inside routes folder
*/
const options = {
ignore: [`${__dirname}/_helpers.js`, `${__dirname}/index.js`]
}
/**
* read all files on current directory and export routes as lowercase of the filename
* example 'routes/Products.js' route will be access by '/products'
*/
const routes =
glob.sync(__dirname + '/*.js', options)
.map(filename => {
const arr = filename.split('/')
let name = arr.pop();
name = name.replace('.js', '')
return {
path: `/${name.toLowerCase()}`,
router: require(`${filename.replace('.js', '')}`)
}
})
.filter(obj => Object.getPrototypeOf(obj.router) == Router)
.forEach(obj => router.use(obj.path, obj.router))
module.exports = router;
then
on app.js
// app.js file
const express = require('express')
const routes = require('./routes')
const app = express()
app.use('/api', routes)