[javascript] how to get request path with express req object

I'm using express + node.js and I have a req object, the request in the browser is /account but when I log req.path I get '/' --- not '/account'.

  //auth required or redirect
  app.use('/account', function(req, res, next) {
    console.log(req.path);
    if ( !req.session.user ) {
      res.redirect('/login?ref='+req.path);
    } else {
      next();
    }
  });

req.path is / when it should be /account ??

For version 4.x you can now use the req.baseUrl in addition to req.path to get the full path. For example, the OP would now do something like:

//auth required or redirect
app.use('/account', function(req, res, next) {
  console.log(req.baseUrl + req.path);  // => /account

  if(!req.session.user) {
    res.redirect('/login?ref=' + encodeURIComponent(req.baseUrl + req.path));  // => /login?ref=%2Faccount
  } else {
    next();
  }
});

If you want to really get only "path" without querystring, you can use url library to parse and get only path part of url.

var url = require('url');

//auth required or redirect
app.use('/account', function(req, res, next) {
    var path = url.parse(req.url).pathname;
    if ( !req.session.user ) {
      res.redirect('/login?ref='+path);
    } else {
      next();
    }
});

//auth required or redirect
app.use('/account', function(req, res, next) {
  console.log(req.path);
  if ( !req.session.user ) {
    res.redirect('/login?ref='+req.path);
  } else {
    next();
  }
});

req.path is / when it should be /account ??

The reason for this is that Express subtracts the path your handler function is mounted on, which is '/account' in this case.

Why do they do this?

Because it makes it easier to reuse the handler function. You can make a handler function that does different things for req.path === '/' and req.path === '/goodbye' for example:

function sendGreeting(req, res, next) {
  res.send(req.path == '/goodbye' ? 'Farewell!' : 'Hello there!')
}

Then you can mount it to multiple endpoints:

app.use('/world', sendGreeting)
app.use('/aliens', sendGreeting)

Giving:

/world           ==>  Hello there!
/world/goodbye   ==>  Farewell!
/aliens          ==>  Hello there!
/aliens/goodbye  ==>  Farewell!

To supplement, here is an example expanded from the documentation, which nicely wraps all you need to know about accessing the paths/URLs in all cases with express:

app.use('/admin', function (req, res, next) { // GET 'http://www.example.com/admin/new?a=b'
  console.dir(req.originalUrl) // '/admin/new?a=b' (WARNING: beware query string)
  console.dir(req.baseUrl) // '/admin'
  console.dir(req.path) // '/new'
  console.dir(req.baseUrl + req.path) // '/admin/new' (full path without query string)
  next()
})

Based on: https://expressjs.com/en/api.html#req.originalUrl

Conclusion: As c1moore's answer states, use:

var fullPath = req.baseUrl + req.path;

It should be:

req.url

express 3.1.x

req.route.path is working for me

var pool = require('../db');

module.exports.get_plants = function(req, res) {
    // to run a query we can acquire a client from the pool,
    // run a query on the client, and then return the client to the pool
    pool.connect(function(err, client, done) {
        if (err) {
            return console.error('error fetching client from pool', err);
        }
        client.query('SELECT * FROM plants', function(err, result) {
            //call `done()` to release the client back to the pool
            done();
            if (err) {
                return console.error('error running query', err);
            }
            console.log('A call to route: %s', req.route.path + '\nRequest type: ' + req.method.toLowerCase());
            res.json(result);
        });
    });
};

after executing I see the following in the console and I get perfect result in my browser.

Express server listening on port 3000 in development mode
A call to route: /plants
Request type: get

In some cases you should use:

req.path

This gives you the path, instead of the complete requested URL. For example, if you are only interested in which page the user requested and not all kinds of parameters the url:

/myurl.htm?allkinds&ofparameters=true

req.path will give you:

/myurl.html