express-enrouten

Lead Maintainer: Jean-Charles Sisk

Route configuration middleware for expressjs.

Note: express-enrouten >=1.0 is only compatible with express >=4.0. For express 3.x support, please use express-enrouten 0.3.x.

API

app.use(enrouten(options))

var express = require('express'),
    enrouten = require('express-enrouten');
 
var app = express();
app.use(enrouten({ ... }));
// or app.use('/foo', enrouten({ ... }));

Configuration

express-enrouten supports routes via configuration and convention.

app.use(enrouten({ directory: 'routes' }));

directory

The directory configuration option (optional) is the path to a directory. Specify a directory to have enrouten scan all files recursively to find files that match the controller-spec API. With this API, the directory structure dictates the paths at which handlers will be mounted.

controllers
 |-user
     |-create.js
     |-list.js

// create.js
module.exports = function (router) {
    router.post('/', function (req, res) {
        res.send('ok');
    });
};

app.use(enrouten({
    directory: 'controllers'
}));

Routes are now:

/user/create
/user/list

index

The index configuration option (optional) is the path to the single file to load (which acts as the route 'index' of the application).

app.use(enrouten({
    index: 'routes/'
}));

// index.js
module.exports = function (router) {
 
    router.get('/', index);
    router.all(passport.protect).get('/account', account);
 
    // etc...
};

routes

The routes configuration option (optional) is an array of route definition objects. Each definition must have a path and handler property and can have an optional method property (method defaults to 'GET').

Optionally, a middleware property can be provided to specify an array of middleware functions (with typical req, res and next arguments) for that specific route.

Note that a handler has a different function signature than a controller. While a controller takes a single argument (a router), a handler takes the typical req and res pair.

app.use(enrouten({
    routes: [
        { path: '/',    method: 'GET', handler: require('./routes/index') },
        { path: '/foo', method: 'GET', handler: require('./routes/foo') },
        { path: '/admin', method: 'GET', handler: require('./routes/foo'), middleware: [isAuthenticated] }
    ]
}));

routerOptions

The routerOptions configuration option (optional) allows additional options to be specified on each Router instance created by express-enrouten. Please see the Express API documentation for complete documentation on each possible option.

app.set('case sensitive routing', true);
app.use(enrouten({
    directory: 'controllers',
    routerOptions: {
        caseSensitive: true
    }
}));

Named Routes

For index and directory configurations there is also support for named routes. The normal express router that is passed in will always behave as such, but in addition it can be used to name a route, adding the name and path to app.locals.enrouten.routes. For example:

'use strict';
 
module.exports = function (router) {
 
    router({ path: '/user/:id', name: 'user-info' })
        .get(function (req, res) {
            res.send('ok');
        });
 
};

Controller Files

A 'controller' is defined as any require-able file which exports a function that accepts a single argument. Any files with an extension of .js (or .coffee if CoffeeScript is registered) will be loaded and if it exports a function that accepts a single argument then this function will be called. NOTE: Any file in the directory tree that matches the API will be invoked/initialized with the express router object.

// Good :)
// controllers/controller.js
module.exports = function (router) {
    router.get('/', function (req, res) {
        // ...
    });
};
 
// Bad :(
// Function does not get returned when `require`-ed, use `module.exports`
exports = function (router) {
    // ...
};
 
// Bad :(
// controllers/other-file-in-same-controller-directory.js
modules.exports = function (config) {
    // `config` will be an express Router
    // ...
};
 
// Acceptable :)
// controllers/config.json - A non-js file (ignored)
// controllers/README.txt - A non-js file (ignored)
// controllers/util.js - A js file that has a different API than the spec (ignored)
module.exports = {
    importantHelper: function () {
 
    }
};

Linting

$ npm run-script lint

Tests

$ npm test

Coverage

$ npm run-script cover && open coverage/lcov-report/index.html