Using routes in Express-js

Question

So I m starting to use Node js  I saw the video with Ryan Dahl on Nodejs org and heard he recommended Express-js for websites   I downloaded the latest version of Express  and began to code  I have a fully fledged static view up on    but as soon as I try sending parameters  I get errors like this   Cannot GET  wiki   I tried following the guide on expressjs com but the way one uses routes has changed in the latest version  which makes the guide unusable   Guide   app get   users  id    function req  res  next       var id   req params id      if  id               do something       else           next                Generated by Express   app get      routes index     My problem arises when I try and add another route   app get   wiki   routes wiki show     I ve tried a bunch of approaches  but I keep getting the Cannot GET  wiki  404  error   routes index js looks like this   exports index   function req  res        res render  index     title   Test   articles  articles  current article  current article  sections  sections         The only thing I did there was add some parameters  arrays in the same file  and this i working  But when I copy the contents and change exports index to exports wiki or exports wiki show I still get the Cannot GET  wiki error   Can anyone explain to me what I m missing here  - Thanks

User · Answer

No one should ever have to keep writing app.use('/someRoute', require('someFile')) until it forms a heap of code.

It just doesn't make sense at all to be spending time invoking/defining routings. Even if you do need custom control, it's probably only for some of the time, and for the most bit you want to be able to just create a standard file structure of routings and have a module do it automatically.

Try Route Magic

As you scale your app, the routing invocations will start to form a giant heap of code that serves no purpose. You want to do just 2 lines of code to handle all the app.use routing invocations with Route Magic like this:

const magic = require('express-routemagic')
magic.use(app, __dirname, '[your route directory]')

For those you want to handle manually, just don't use pass the directory to Magic.

User · Answer

Seems that only index js get loaded when you require    routes     I used the following code in index js to load the rest of the routes   var fs   require  fs       path   require  path     fs readdirSync   dirname  forEach function file     var route fname     dirname         file    var route name   path basename route fname    js      if route name      index   amp  amp  route name 0                 exports route name    require route fname  route name

User · Answer

So  after I created my question  I got this related list on the right with a similar issue  Organize routes in Node js   The answer in that post linked to the Express repo on GitHub and suggests to look at the  route-separation  example   This helped me change my code  and I now have it working  - Thanks for your comments   My implementation ended up looking like this   I require my routes in the app js   var express   require  express       site   require    site       wiki   require    wiki      And I add my routes like this   app get      site index   app get   wiki  id   wiki show   app get   wiki  id edit   wiki edit     I have two files called wiki js and site js in the root of my app  containing this   exports edit   function req  res         var wiki entry   req params id       res render  wiki edit             title   Editing Wiki           wiki  wiki entry

User · Answer

The route-map express example matches url paths with objects which in turn matches http verbs with functions  This lays the routing out in a tree  which is concise and easy to read  The apps s entities are also written as objects with the functions as enclosed methods   var express   require        lib express       verbose   process env NODE ENV     test      app   module exports   express     app map   function a  route     route   route          for  var key in a        switch  typeof a key                  path                  case  object           app map a key   route   key           break           get  function                case  function           if  verbose  console log   s  s   key  route           app key  route  a key            break                var users       list  function req  res       res send  user list            get  function req  res       res send  user     req params uid           del  function req  res       res send  delete users            var pets       list  function req  res       res send  user     req params uid      s pets            del  function req  res       res send  delete     req params uid      s pet     req params pid           app map       users         get  users list      del  users del         uid           get  users get          pets             get  pets list             pid               del  pets del                                  app listen 3000

User · Answer

You could also organise them into modules  So it would be something like      controllers     index js     indexController js app js   and then in the indexController js of the controllers export your controllers     indexController js module exports   function      do some set up  var self          indexAction   function  req res            do your thing   return self       then in index js of controllers dir  exports indexController   require    indexController      and finally in app js  var controllers   require    controllers     app get     controllers indexController   indexAction      I think this approach allows for clearer seperation and also you can configure your controllers by passing perhaps a db connection in

[node.js] Using routes in Express-js

No one should ever have to keep writing app.use('/someRoute', require('someFile')) until it forms a heap of code.

Examples related to node.js

Examples related to url-routing

Examples related to express