By Azat Mardanov
Express.js is one of the most popular and mature Node.js frameworks. In this post, we’ll cover some core Express features in the form of middleware. You can read more about in Intro to Express.js series on my blog webapplog.com. To learn how to create an Express application from scratch please refer to the earlier post.
Request Handlers
Express.js is a Node.js framework that among other things provides a way to organize routes. Each route is defined via a method call on an application object with a URL pattern as a first parameter (RegExp is also supported), for example:
app.get('api/v1/stories/', function(res, req){
...
})or, for a POST method:
app.post('/api/v1/stories', function(req,res){
...
})Needless to say, the DELETE and PUT methods are supported as well.
The callbacks that we pass to the get() or post() methods are called request handlers. They take requests (req), process them and write to response (res) objects. For example:
app.get('/about', function(req,res){
res.send('About Us: ...');
});We can have multiple request handlers, often referred to as middleware. They accept a third parameter, next, which when called (via next()) will switch the execution flow to the next handler:
app.get('/api/v1/stories/:id', function(req,res, next) {
//do authorization
//if not authorized or there is an error
// return next(error);
//if authorized and no errors
return next();
}), function(req,res, next) {
//extract id and fetch the object from the database
//assuming no errors, save story in the request object
req.story = story;
return next();
}), function(req,res) {
//output the result of the database search
res.send(res.story);
});In the above example, the ID of a story in the URL pattern (“:id”) is a query string parameter that we will use to find matching items in the database.
Parameters Middleware
Parameters are values passed in the query string of a URL in the request. If we didn’t have Express.js or a similar library and had to use just the core Node.js modules, we would need to extract parameters from HTTP.request object via a combination of the require(‘querystring’).parse(url) or require(‘url’).parse(url, true) functions.
Thanks to the Connect framework and people at VisionMedia, Express.js makes it easy to support parameters, error handling and many other important features in the form of middleware.
This is how we can plug the param middleware into our app:
app.param('id', function(req,res, next, id){
//do something with id
//store id or other info in req object
//call next when done
next();
});
app.get('/api/v1/stories/:id',function(req,res){
//param middleware will be execute before and
//we expect req object already have needed info
//output something
res.send(data);
});
For example:
app.param('id', function(req,res, next, id){
req.db.get('stories').findOne({_id:id}, function (e, story){
if (e) return next(e);
if (!story) return next(new Error('Nothing is found'));
req.story = story;
next();
});
});
app.get('/api/v1/stories/:id',function(req,res){
res.send(req.story);
});We could also use multiple request handlers but the concept remains the same: we can expect to have req.story object or an error thrown prior to the execution of this code so we abstract the common code/logic of getting parameters and their respective objects:
app.get('/api/v1/stories/:id', function(req,res, next) {
//do authorization
}),
//we have an object in req.story so no work is needed here
function(req,res) {
//output the result of the database search
res.send(story);
});Authorization and input sanitation are also good candidates for placing in middleware.
We can also combine multiple parameters:
app.get('/api/v1/stories/:storyId/elements/:elementId',function(req,res){
res.send(req.element);
});Error Handling
Error handling is typically used across the whole application, therefore it’s best to implement it as a middleware. It has the same parameters plus one more, error:
app.use(function(err, req, res, next) {
//do logging and user-friendly error message display
res.send(500);
})In fact, the response can be anything:
JSON string
app.use(function(err, req, res, next) {
//do logging and user-friendly error message display
res.send(500, {status:500, message: 'internal error', type:'internal'});
})Text message
app.use(function(err, req, res, next) {
//do logging and user-friendly error message display
res.send(500, 'internal server error');
})Error page
app.use(function(err, req, res, next) {
//do logging and user-friendly error message display
//assuming that template engine is plugged in
res.render('500');
})Redirect to error page
app.use(function(err, req, res, next) {
//do logging and user-friendly error message display
res.redirect('/public/500.html');
})Error HTTP response status (401, 400, 500, etc.)
app.use(function(err, req, res, next) {
//do logging and user-friendly error message display
res.end(500);
})In addition, logging should also be abstracted as middleware.
To trigger an error from within your request handlers and middleware you can just call:
next(error);or
next(new Error('Something went wrong'));You can also have multiple error handlers and use named instead of anonymous functions as shown in the Express.js Error handling guide.
Other Middleware
The res.json() function conveniently serializes JavaScript/Node.js objects as a JSON string. For example:
app.get('/api/v1/stories/:id', function(req,res){
res.json(req.story);
});which is equivalent to (assuming req.story is an Array and Object):
app.get('/api/v1/stories/:id', function(req,res){
res.send(req.story);
});or
app.get('api/v1/stories/:id',function(req,res){
res.set({
'Content-Type': 'application/json'
});
res.send(req.story);
});Abstraction
Middleware is flexible. You can use anonymous or named functions, but the best thing is to abstract request handlers into external modules based on the functionality:
var stories = require.('./routes/stories');
var elements = require.('./routes/elements');
var users = require.('./routes/users');
...
app.get('/stories/,stories.find);
app.get('/stories/:storyId/elements/:elementId', elements.find);
app.put('/users/:userId',users.update);
routes/stories.js:
module.exports.find = function(req,res, next) {
};
routes/elements.js:
module.exports.find = function(req,res,next){
};
routes/users.js:
module.exports.update = function(req,res,next){
};
You can use some functional programming tricks, like this:
function requiredParamHandler(param){
//do something with a param, e.g., check that it's present in a query string
return function (req,res, next) {
//use param, e.g., if token is valid proceed with next();
next();
});
}
app.get('/api/v1/stories/:id', requiredParamHandler('token'), story.show);
var story = {
show: function (req, res, next) {
//do some logic, e.g., restrict fields to output
return res.send();
}
}Conclusion
As you can see middleware is a powerful concept for keeping code organized. The best practice is to keep your router lean and thin by moving all of the logic into corresponding external modules/files. This way the important server configuration parameters will be neatly in one place, right there when you need them.
This post was originally published at https://www.webapplog.com/intro-to-express-js-parameters-error-handling-and-other-middleware/
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