express-format-response

Overview

Middleware for formatting responses, in order to include some default fields.

Works with Express.

Usage

This middleware sends the data as defined in the configuration template, in JSON format. For this to work, this must be the last middleware used, and no middleware before it can send the response before (unless thats desired, in case of errors or authentications problems, for example).

The template format object can access properties both from the request object and from response object.

If you want to send data that is not in these objects, you must add them to one of the two before calling this middleware.

var express = require('express'),
    app = express(),
    responseFormatter = require('express-format-response'),
 
    template = {
        info: '<%= res.info %>',
        data: '<%= res.data %>',
        method: '<%= req.method %>'
    };
 
    app.get('/', function (req, res, next) {
        res.info = 'this informaton will be in the response';
        res.data = {
            arr: ['This', 'array', 'will', 'also', 'be', 'in', 'response'],
            nested: {
                prop: 'so will this nested property'
            }
        };
        // req.method is already in the request object, so no need to add it here.
 
    }, responseFormatter(template));

To avoid cluttering the namespace in the request and response objects, it is possible to use properties nested inside a container object. The template itself supports nested placeholders as well.

var express = require('express'),
    app = express(),
    responseFormatter = require('express-format-response'),
 
    template = {
        // Nested properties in template
        info: {
            message: '<%= res.fiddus.message %>',
            version: '<%= res.fiddus.apiVersion %>',
            method: '<%= req.method %>'
         },
        data: '<%= res.fiddus.data %>',
    };
 
    app.get('/', function (req, res, next) {
        // Avoid cluttering the namespace by creating a container to all the data to be passed to template
        res.fiddus = {
            message: 'this informaton will be in the response',
            apiVersion: 1,
            data: {
                arr: ['This', 'array', 'will', 'also', 'be', 'in', 'response'],
                nested: {
                    prop: 'so will this nested property'
                }
            }
         }
    }, responseFormatter(template));

It is possible to set the response status code through the field responseCode in the response object. If nothing is set to this field, response code will be 200.

TODO

• Improve template parser
• Add support to error messages formatting

Contributing

Feel free to fork and mess with this code. But, before opening PRs, be sure that you adhere to the Code Style and Conventions (run grunt lint) and add as many tests as needed to ensure your code is working as expected, or correct tests if wrong.

License

The MIT License (MIT)

Copyright (c) 2015 Vinicius Teixeira [e-mail]

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.