adambabik / express-route

express-route is a library that let you organize the routes for express applications.

express-route

express-route is a library that let you organize the routes for the express applications.

Features

• single method API to read and apply the routes
• ability to read routes synchronously or asynchronously
• versatile format of the route definition to support all cases

Usage

Firstly, you need to define the routes. The route can be a function, an object or an array of objects. They can be in one file or in many files.

The simplest definition may look like this:

module.exports = {
	'/home': function (req, res, next) {
		res.end('Hello!');
	}
};

This definition is simply translated to the following code:

app.get('/', function (req, res, next) {
	res.end('Hello!');
});

get is a default HTTP method. You can change it using an object definition:

module.exports = {
	'/home': {
		methods: ['post'],
		fn: function (req, res, next) {
			res.end('Hello!');
		}
	}
};

To apply the routes to the express application you need to call route with valid parameters:

var route = require('express-route');

// app is a reference to the express application
// './routes' is a path to the directory with the routes
// the third parameter is a configuration object
route(app, './routes', {
	// retrieve routes synchronously
	sync: true,

	// action to invoke when route is marked as restricted: true
	ensureRestriction: function (req, res, next) {
		if (!user.authorized()) {
			res.status(403).end('Forbidden');
			return;
		}
		next();
	}
});

Route definition examples

The definition of the route may be slightly more complicated:

'use strict';

module.exports = {

	// route with restricted setting on

	'/user': {
		fn: function (req, res) {
			res.end('user');
		},
		restricted: true
	},

	// route that accepts several methods

	'/user/categories': {
		fn: function (req, res) {
			res.end('method ' + req.method + ' post #' + req.params.id);
		},
		methods: ['get', 'post']
	},

	// several actions with different HTTP methods for one route

	'/user/posts/:id': [
		{
			fn: function (req, res) {
				res.end('method ' + req.method + ' post #' + req.params.id);
			},
			restricted: true,
			methods: ['get', 'delete']
		},
		{
			fn: function (req, res) {
				res.end('method ' + req.method + ' post #' + req.params.id);
			},
			restricted: true,
			methods: ['post']
		}
	]
};

API

route(app: Object, path: String, settings: Object)

Apply routes to the express application.

• app - reference to the express application,
• path - path to the folder or the file with the routes,
• settings - a configuration object,
  • sync: Boolean - whether the load of the routings is synchronous or not (optional, true by default),
  • ensureRestriction: Function - middleware which check if the request is authenticated (optional, by default it's a function that accepts all requests),
  • ext: Array - array with valid file extensions, e.g. ['.route'] (optional, ['.js'] by default).