Paperboy
Purpose
A node.js module for delivering static files.
Current Status
This module is used by tempalias.com in production and is mainted by Felix Geisendörfer. However, this one one of my first node modules and it lacks a test suite, you've been warned : ).
Features
- Configurable callbacks on most events
- ETag / 304 Support
- Custom HTTP headers
Example
Example from example/basic.js:
var
path = require('path'),
http = require('http'),
paperboy = require('../lib/paperboy'),
PORT = 8003,
WEBROOT = path.join(path.dirname(__filename), 'webroot');
http.createServer(function(req, res) {
var ip = req.connection.remoteAddress;
paperboy
.deliver(WEBROOT, req, res)
.addHeader('Expires', 300)
.addHeader('X-PaperRoute', 'Node')
.before(function() {
console.log('Received Request');
})
.after(function(statCode) {
log(statCode, req.url, ip);
})
.error(function(statCode, msg) {
res.writeHead(statCode, {'Content-Type': 'text/plain'});
res.end("Error " + statCode);
log(statCode, req.url, ip, msg);
})
.otherwise(function(err) {
res.writeHead(404, {'Content-Type': 'text/plain'});
res.end("Error 404: File not found");
log(404, req.url, ip, err);
});
}).listen(PORT);
function log(statCode, url, ip, err) {
var logStr = statCode + ' - ' + url + ' - ' + ip;
if (err)
logStr += ' - ' + err;
console.log(logStr);
}
API Docs
paperboy.deliver(webroot, req, res)
Checks the webroot
folder if it has a file that matches the req.url
and streams it to the client. If req.url
ends with a '/' (slash), 'index.html' is appended automatically.
Parameters:
webroot
: Absolute path where too look for static files to servereq
: Ahttp.ServerRequest
objectres
: Ahttp.ServerResponse
object
This returns an object with several functions that you can call, to modify how the static content is delivered. Each of these functions returns the object, so you can chain them, as shown in the example above. They each take a callback function, whose arguments and expected behavior are detailed below.
before(callback())
Fires if a matching file was found in the webroot
and is about to be delivered. The delivery can be canceled by returning false
from within the callback.
after(callback(statCode))
Fires after a file has been successfully delivered from the webroot
. statCode
contains the numeric HTTP status code that was sent to the client. You must close the connection yourself if the error callback fires!
error(callback(statCode, msg))
Fires if there was an error delivering a file from the webroot
. statCode
contains the numeric HTTP status code that was sent to the client. msg
contains the error message. You must close the connection yourself if the error callback fires! The default callback shows a minimal HTTP error page.
otherwise(callback(err))
Fires if no matching file was found in the webroot
. Also fires if false
was returned in the delegate.before()
callback. If there was a problem stating the file, err
is set to the contents of that error message. The default callback shows a simple "HTTP 404 File Not Found" page.
addHeader(callback(name, value))
Sets an arbitrary HTTP header. The header name Expires
is special and expects the number of milliseconds till expiry, from which it will calculate the proper HTTP date.
License
Paperboy is licensed under the MIT license.
Credits
- Jan Lehnardt for coming up with the name "Paperboy"