express-diroutes

[WIP] express-diroutes

What's This?

A simple package to generate an Express middleware router given a directory structure.

Usage

To get started, install this via npm:

npm i express-diroutes

You can then use it in your application with:

const path = require('path');
const expressDiroutes = require('express-diroutes');

expressDiroutes({
  rootPath: path.join(__dirname, './path/to/routes'),
});

The Routes Directory

The routes directory contains files named after their endpoints. The following is an example of how to structure a directory and their corresponding routings:

- /{index}.js
- /{star}.js
- /session.js
- /user/create.js
- /user/read.js
- /user/update.js
- /user/delete.js
- /users
- /users/{_}user_id.js
- /profiles/{_}profile_id.js

The above directory structure will result in registration of routes:

/session
/user/create
/user/read
/user/update
/user/delete
/users
/users/:user_id
/profiles/:profile_id
/*
/

Route String Mappings

The following string mappings will be applied on all filenames to generate the eventual route:

{star}  -> *
{index} -> /
{_}     -> :

So a file named a{star}.js will correspond to the pathname /a*.

A file named {index}.js will be the root of the pathname, i.e. /.

A file named {_}id.js will correspond to the pathname /:id.

The Route File

All route files should export a function that returns either an object or an Expres middleware.

Middleware Export

A route file that exports a middleware will look similar to:

module.exports = () =>
  (req, res) => {
    res.json('ok');
  };

Given such a route file, express-diroutes will call the .use(...) method on the Express router.

If the file is named healthz.js and is located in a directory named a in the rootPath specified when instantiating express-diroutes, the following method will be called:

const router = new express.Router();
// ...
router.use('/a/healthz', require('%_ROOT_PATH_%/a/healthz')());

Object Export

A route file that exports an object should look similar to:

module.exports = () => ({
  get: (req, res) => {
    res.json('GET /...');
  },
  post: (req, res) => {
    res.json('POST /...');
  },
});

Given such a route file, express-diroutes will register the get property with the .get(...) method on the Express router and the post property with the .post(...) method on the Express router.

If the file is named test.js and is located in a directory named routes in the rootPath specified when instantiating express-diroutes, the following methods will be called:

const router = new express.Router();
// ...
router.get('/routes/test', require('%_ROOT_PATH_%/routes/test')().get);
router.post('/routes/test', require('%_ROOT_PATH_%/routes/test')().post);

In other words, the properties of the exported object should correspond to an available method on the object returned by new express.Router().

Contributing

Fork this repository, make your changes and submit a pull request to the master branch.