express-json-handler

Simply return objects from your route handler functions in express.

Instead of:

app.post('/auth/', (req, res) => {
  res.json({ success: false });
});

do:

const JSONHandler = require('express-json-handler');
 
app.post('/auth/', JSONHandler(async (req, res) {
  return { success: false };
}));

Benefits?

• return instead of res.json()
• async functions properly handled
• errors properly delivered in JSON responses
• browser cache disabled

Installation

npm install express-json-handler

Async functions handled and errors catched

express-json-handler properly supports async functions in Express 4. This won't work as expected in Express 4:

app.post('/auth/', async (req, res) {
  non_existing();
});

express-json-handler catches errors on your async handler and in that case { success: false } is returned. You can change the default reply:

const JSONHandler = require('express-json-handler');
 
JSONHandler.DEFAULT_FAIL_RESPONSE = {
  message: "Internal server error"
};
 
app.post('/auth/', JSONHandler(async (req, res) {
  non_existing();
}));

Direct responses

You can still send direct responses from your handler code, either with res.send() or even res.json() if you like. Return nothing or null from your handler in case you do.

Caching of responses

By default express-json-handler sends cache disabling headers in responses, namely:

Cache-Control: private, max-age=0, no-cache, must-revalidate
Pragma: no-cache

You can change that behavior:

const JSONHandler = require('JSONHandler');
 
JSONHandler.DEFAULT_HEADERS = {
  'Cache-Control': 'max-age=3600'
};

Development and maintenance

Tests: npm run test or mocha test.js.

Liner: npm run lint or eslint index.js.

Footer

Author: Egor Egorov [e-mail].
License: MIT