Node.js Express export routes for organization?

Question

Utilizing express.Router() for API calls to/from our application:

var express = require('express');
var app     = express();
var router  = express.Router();

router.use console.logs before every API call:

router.use(function(req, res, next) { // run for any & all requests
    console.log("Connection to the API.."); // set up logging for every API call
    next(); // ..to the next routes from here..
});

How do we export our routes to folder/routes.js and access them from our main app.js, where they are currently located:

router.route('/This') // on routes for /This
    // post a new This (accessed by POST @ http://localhost:8888/api/v1/This)
    .post(function(req, res) {
        // do stuff
    });

router.route('/That') // on routes for /That
    // post a new That (accessed by POST @ http://localhost:8888/api/v1/That)
    .post(function(req, res) {
        // do stuff
    });

...when we prefix every route with:

app.use('/api/v1', router); // all of the API routes are prefixed with '/api' version '/v1'

Solution 1

In your new routes module (eg in api/myroutes.js), export the module with module.exports = myRouter;

var express     = require('express');
var router      = express.Router();

router.use(function(req, res, next) { // run for any & all requests
  console.log("Connection to the API.."); // set up logging for every API call
  next(); // ..to the next routes from here..
});

router.route('/This')
  .get(function(req, res) { });
  .post(function(req, res) { });

...

module.exports = myRouter;

Then you can require the module in your main server/app file:

var express = require('express');
var app     = express();

...

var myRoutes = require('./api/myRoutes');

app.use('/api', myRoutes); //register the routes

Solution 2

In your app.js file you can have the following:

//api
app.use('/', require('./api'));

In the folder api you can have 'index.js` file, where you can write something like this:

var express = require('express');
var router = express.Router();

//API version 1
router.use('/api/v1', require('./v1'));

module.exports = router;

In the folder v1 file index.js something like this:

var express = require('express');
var router = express.Router();

router.use('/route1', require('./route1'));
router.use('/route2', require('./route2'));

module.exports = router;

File route1.js can have the following structure:

var express = require('express');
var router = express.Router();

router.route('/')
    .get(getRouteHandler)
    .post(postRouteHandler);

function getRouteHandler(req, res) {
    //handle GET route here
}

function postRouteHandler(req, res) {
    //handle POST route here
}

module.exports = router;

route2.js file can have the same structure.

I think this is very comfortable for developing the node project.

Comments

[jpierson]

So far this is the closest example I've found to the one here start.jcolemorrison.com/… however in this case there seems to be an immediate hierarchy for the base router in index.js and the routers underneath. Is there any performance or configurability differences between these approaches?

[jpierson]

I was also wondering how index.js as picked up by simply writing require('./api') but this answer to another question on SO answered my question.