express-routeloader

Express-routeloader

This is originally a fork of Livedocs-routeloader. Some credit goes to Simon Mcmannus

Basics

Express-routeloader makes it easy to handle endpoints for your REST server. Express-routeloader builds an express router from your ./routes folder.

when given a directory structure like

routes
    - groups.js

where groups is

exports.read = {
    handler : function (req, res) {
        res.send(200);
    }
};
exports.create = {
    handler : function (req, res) {
        res.send(200);
    }
};

Express-routeloader will create a router with the following routes:

POST /groups
GET /groups/:id

You can use multiple routers in the same project which is really useful for maintaining multiple versions of an api.

Routeloader

The routeloader works as a simple router of express:

'use strict';

var express = require('express'),
    app = express(),
router = require('express-routeloader')({/* option */});

app.use(router);

app.listen(3000);

options

rootDir: The directory containing your routes. Defaults to ./routes

logger: Logging function. default : console.log

hideCRUD : Should CRUD endpoints have the extentions be hidden. GET assets/read/:id becomes `GET assets/:id. Defaults to true.

verbMap: Json object mapping filenames to default HTTP verbs. default :

{
    "create": "POST",
    "read": "GET",
    "list" : "GET",
    "search" : "GET",
    "update": "PUT",
    "delete": "DELETE"
}

prefix: prefix for all loaded routes e.g. /api/v1/. this is very useful for maintaining multiple versions of an api.

Routes

routing endpoints are node modules that export a set of objects with a method handler:

'use strict' // Ofc we are running strict!
exports.hello = {
    handler :function (req, res, next) {
        res.send('world');
    }
};

You can overwrite default settings by adding properties to the exported object:

'use strict' // Ofc we are running strict!

exports.hello = {
    url = '/different/route/to/:id',
    method = 'PUT',
    middleware = [func1, func2, func3],
    handler : function (re, res, next) {
        res.send('World');
    }
};

validation

Express-routeloader lets you use json-schema to validate the input to your endpoints. to add validation simply add the schema to the module.

'use strict' // Ofc we are running strict!

exports.hello = {
    url = 'update/:id',
    method : 'POST',
    params =  {
        required : ['id'],
        properties : {
            handler : {
                type : 'integer',
                minimum : 0
            }
        }
    },
    query = {
        properties : {
            someOption : {
                type : 'boolean'
            }
        }
    },
    body = {
        properties : {
            name : {
                type : 'string',
                maxLength : 80
            }
        }
    },
    handler : function (req, res, next) {
        // do an update
        res.send('world');
    }
};

Promises

Express route validator supports promises. If a route handler returns a promise, routeloader with call res.send on promise resolution and next on rejection.