[node.js] How to get the full url in Express?

Let's say my sample url is

http://example.com/one/two

and I say I have the following route

app.get('/one/two', function (req, res) {
    var url = req.url;
}

The value of url will be /one/two.

How do I get the full url in Express? For example, in the case above, I would like to receive http://example.com/one/two.

This question is related to node.js url express

The answer is


Instead of concatenating the things together on your own, you could instead use the node.js API for URLs and pass URL.format() the informations from express.

Example:

var url = require('url');

function fullUrl(req) {
  return url.format({
    protocol: req.protocol,
    host: req.get('host'),
    pathname: req.originalUrl
  });
}

Thank you all for this information. This is incredibly annoying.

Add this to your code and you'll never have to think about it again:

var app = express();

app.all("*", function (req, res, next) {  // runs on ALL requests
    req.fullUrl = req.protocol + '://' + req.get('host') + req.originalUrl
        next()
})

You can do or set other things there as well, such as log to console.


Use this,

var url = req.headers.host + '/' + req.url;

Just the code below was enough for me!

const baseUrl = `${request.protocol}://${request.headers.host}`;
// http://127.0.0.1:3333

My code looks like this,

params['host_url'] = req.protocol + '://' + req.headers.host + req.url;


I would suggest using originalUrl instead of URL:

var url = req.protocol + '://' + req.get('host') + req.originalUrl;

See the description of originalUrl here: http://expressjs.com/api.html#req.originalUrl

In our system, we do something like this, so originalUrl is important to us:

  foo = express();
  express().use('/foo', foo);
  foo.use(require('/foo/blah_controller'));

blah_controller looks like this:

  controller = express();
  module.exports = controller;
  controller.get('/bar/:barparam', function(req, res) { /* handler code */ });

So our URLs have the format:

www.example.com/foo/bar/:barparam

Hence, we need req.originalUrl in the bar controller get handler.


I use the node package 'url' (npm install url)

What it does is when you call

url.parse(req.url, true, true)

it will give you the possibility to retrieve all or parts of the url. More info here: https://github.com/defunctzombie/node-url

I used it in the following way to get whatever comes after the / in http://www.example.com/ to use as a variable and pull up a particular profile (kind of like facebook: http://www.facebook.com/username)

    var url = require('url');
    var urlParts = url.parse(req.url, true, true);
    var pathname = urlParts.pathname;
    var username = pathname.slice(1);

Though for this to work, you have to create your route this way in your server.js file:

self.routes['/:username'] = require('./routes/users');

And set your route file this way:

router.get('/:username', function(req, res) {
 //here comes the url parsing code
}

Here is a great way to add a function you can call on the req object to get the url

  app.use(function(req, res, next) {
    req.getUrl = function() {
      return req.protocol + "://" + req.get('host') + req.originalUrl;
    }
    return next();
  });

Now you have a function you can call on demand if you need it.


You need to construct it using req.headers.host + req.url. Of course if you are hosting in a different port and such you get the idea ;-)


I found it a bit of a PITA to get the requested url. I can't believe there's not an easier way in express. Should just be req.requested_url

But here's how I set it:

var port = req.app.settings.port || cfg.port;
res.locals.requested_url = req.protocol + '://' + req.host  + ( port == 80 || port == 443 ? '' : ':'+port ) + req.path;

var full_address = req.protocol + "://" + req.headers.host + req.originalUrl;

or

var full_address = req.protocol + "://" + req.headers.host + req.baseUrl;

You can use this function in the route like this

app.get('/one/two', function (req, res) {
    const url = getFullUrl(req);
}

/**
 * Gets the self full URL from the request
 * 
 * @param {object} req Request
 * @returns {string} URL
 */
const getFullUrl = (req) => `${req.protocol}://${req.headers.host}${req.originalUrl}`;

req.protocol will give you http or https, req.headers.host will give you the full host name like www.google.com, req.originalUrl will give the rest pathName(in your case /one/two)


make req.host/req.hostname effective must have two condition when Express behind proxies:

  1. app.set('trust proxy', 'loopback'); in app.js
  2. X-Forwarded-Host header must specified by you own in webserver. eg. apache, nginx

nginx:

server {
    listen myhost:80;
    server_name  myhost;
    location / {
        root /path/to/myapp/public;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $host:$server_port;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Server $host;
        proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
        proxy_pass http://myapp:8080;
    }
}

apache:

<VirtualHost myhost:80>
    ServerName myhost
    DocumentRoot /path/to/myapp/public
    ProxyPass / http://myapp:8080/
    ProxyPassReverse / http://myapp:8080/
</VirtualHost>

Using url.format:

var url = require('url');

This support all protocols and include port number. If you don't have a query string in your originalUrl you can use this cleaner solution:

var requrl = url.format({
    protocol: req.protocol,
    host: req.get('host'),
    pathname: req.originalUrl,
});

If you have a query string:

var urlobj = url.parse(req.originalUrl);
urlobj.protocol = req.protocol;
urlobj.host = req.get('host');
var requrl = url.format(urlobj);

async function (request, response, next) {
  const url = request.rawHeaders[9] + request.originalUrl;
  //or
  const url = request.headers.host + request.originalUrl;
}

Examples related to node.js

Hide Signs that Meteor.js was Used Querying date field in MongoDB with Mongoose SyntaxError: Cannot use import statement outside a module Server Discovery And Monitoring engine is deprecated How to fix ReferenceError: primordials is not defined in node UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: This error originated either by throwing inside of an async function without a catch block dyld: Library not loaded: /usr/local/opt/icu4c/lib/libicui18n.62.dylib error running php after installing node with brew on Mac internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:582 throw err DeprecationWarning: Buffer() is deprecated due to security and usability issues when I move my script to another server Please run `npm cache clean`

Examples related to url

What is the difference between URL parameters and query strings? Allow Access-Control-Allow-Origin header using HTML5 fetch API File URL "Not allowed to load local resource" in the Internet Browser Slack URL to open a channel from browser Getting absolute URLs using ASP.NET Core How do I load an HTTP URL with App Transport Security enabled in iOS 9? Adding form action in html in laravel React-router urls don't work when refreshing or writing manually URL for public Amazon S3 bucket How can I append a query parameter to an existing URL?

Examples related to express

UnhandledPromiseRejectionWarning: This error originated either by throwing inside of an async function without a catch block jwt check if token expired Avoid "current URL string parser is deprecated" warning by setting useNewUrlParser to true MongoNetworkError: failed to connect to server [localhost:27017] on first connect [MongoNetworkError: connect ECONNREFUSED 127.0.0.1:27017] npm notice created a lockfile as package-lock.json. You should commit this file Make Axios send cookies in its requests automatically What does body-parser do with express? SyntaxError: Unexpected token function - Async Await Nodejs Route.get() requires callback functions but got a "object Undefined" How to redirect to another page in node.js