Rout

Middleware style router with configurable pattern matching/parsing, vhost and namespacing.

Install

npm install rout

Y!?

Why did I add to npm's 2526 packages that match the search "router"?

• Mostly because every other router I know of has a built-in parser. That bothers me.
• A lot of routers don't make their state (routes) available to the outside world. Does it matter? Better safe than sorry. Internal state is bad enough anyway.

Usage

// setup the router with a parser
var UrlPattern = require('url-pattern');
var parser = function(pattern, url) {
  return new UrlPattern(pattern).match(url);
}
var Router = require('rout').bind(null, parser);
 
// create a router instance
var router = new Router();
 
// add a route (there are other ways to do this)
router.get('/foo', function(req, res) {
  res.end('foo');
});
 
// use as middleware
http.createServer(router);

Router(parser, routes, patternModifier)

parser(pattern, url)

Function that matches url to pattern and parses parameters from url.

• if the url matches the pattern:
  • if there are parameters, return an object of parameters
  • if there are no parameters, return an empty object
• if the url does not match the pattern:
  • return false

url-pattern is a great parser for routers.

routes

Pass in an array of routes to set initial state.

patternModifier(pattern)

This function modifies the pattern that will be passed to the parser. The return value is the pattern that will be used by the parser.

Manual route creation

A route can be a handler function or an object with the properties method, pattern and handler.

var routes = [
  // handler for all requests
  function(req, res, next) {
    console.log(req.url);
    next();
  },
  // basic route
  {
    method: 'get',
    pattern: '/foo/:id',
    handler: function(req, res, next, params) { res.end('foo: '+params.id); }
  },
];

method

The http method of the request. Not case-sensitive.

If not present or falsy, the route will match all methods.

pattern

The pattern to test the request url against.

If not present or falsy, the route will match all urls.

handler(req, res, next, params, data)

• req - request object
• res - response object
• next - callback to continue to the next matching route, optionally passing data to that route handler
• params - url parameters
• data - a data object that persists across handlers for a request

Helpers / route generation

router[method](pattern, handler), router[method](handler)

Methods: get, post, put, patch, delete, options, all

// add route that handles all methods and all urls (all requests)
router.all(function(req, res, next) {
  next();
});
// add route that handles all get requests
router.get(function(req, res) {
  res.end();
});
// add route that handles post requets to /foo
router.post('/foo', function(req, res) {
  res.end();
});

router.routes

Routes are stored on router.routes so that they can be easily accessed and manipulated.

Middleware

router.all(favicon(__dirname+'/public/favicon.ico'));

router.vhost(pattern, handler)

Uses the configured parser to match the host to the pattern.

If the request host matches the pattern, the handler will be called.

// direct anything with a "foo" subdomain to fooRouter
router.all(router.vhost('(http(s)\\://)foo.:domain(.:tld)(\\::port)', fooRouter));

router.namespace(pattern, router)

Returns a router with the same parser and state as router, but all route patterns are parsed with pattern prefixed.

var router = new Router();
 
var subRouter = new Router();
subRouter.get('/bar', function() {});
 
// /foo/bar will be handled by the subRouter's /bar
router.all(router.namespace('/foo', subRouter));