This module offers an Express 4 middleware that augments the built-in router. It supports named routes and offers a helper function for getting the url for a named route, which is very useful for templating. It allows you to define a set of handlers (controllers) for a set of routes in a more convential, MVC-style format.

Usage

//Define an array of routes, each in the format described below, e.g.:
var routes = [{ 
    path: "/test", 
    handler: "Test.index", 
    name: "test" 
}, { 
    path: "/test2", 
    handler: function(req, res, next) { 
        res.send('handler can be a function too!'); 
    }, 
    name: "test2"
}]; 

//Define an object of controllers (i.e. route handlers). 
//Each key is the name of a controller, as used by the router.
//The controller methods are automatically called with the urlFor
//function as their fourth argument, so you can do.,
// res.redirect(urlFor("test")) instead of hardcoding the redirect path.
var controllers = {
	Test: { 
		index: function(req, res, next, urlFor) { 
			res.send("index!"); 
		} 
	}
}; 

//Use the module.
//The second argument is the host for your app, used in url generation
var app = require("express")();
var simplerRouter = require("express-simple-router")(routes, "your-project-hostname.com");

app.use(simplerRouter.getRouter(controllers));

simplerRouter.urlFor("test"); //returns ‘/test’
simplerRouter.routes; //gives back the routes object

That’s it! Now a GET request to /test would return a page saying “index!”.

Route format

Each route is an object with the following keys.

• path: the path to match, in the format used by the Express Router
• handler: an express middleware function, or (as in the example above) a string corresponding to a controller method that should be used to handle the route. E.g. “Event.list”, where “Event” would be the name of the controller and “list” the name of the method. Using a string is convenient if you want to define your routes in a JSON configuration file or similar.
• name (optional): a name for the route. Used by the urlFor method generate a url to that route.
• method (optional, defaults to “get”): the HTTP method associated with this route; if the request method doesn’t match the one provided here, the controller won’t be called. Any value allowed by the Express router can be used here.