Simple Routes

A simple route pattern matcher and action associator.

Changelog

Installation

npm install simple-routes

Usage

Simply import and create routes;

let Routes = require('simple-routes');

let routes = new Routes();

Add Routes

Add route patterns by using a string representing a url to match and an action that should match that pattern.

The url string (route pattern) should follow the minimatch documentation for matching.

Route patternss are added using an array like ['/url/route/*/to/match', action]

Action is a function callback. This function will be returned on a successful match.

let main_controller = require('./controllers/main');

// route, action
routes.addRoute('/index.html', main_controller.index);

// [route,action], [route,action]
routes.addRoutes([
  ['/blog/articles/*', main_controller.articles],
  ['**', main_controller.default]
]);

routes.hasRoute('/index.html'); // true

let action = routes.getAction('/blog/articles/cheese'); // returns main_controller.articles, undefined if not found

NOTE:

The order in which route patterns are added is important. In the example above you see the route ** which would match ANY AND ALL routes. However since it is added last the first two routes will be checked first for a match.

Duplicate route patterns will log a warning and be ignored (since they would never be reached anyway)

QUERY STRINGS:

Query strings are ignored when adding a route (addRoute(...)) and calling hasRoute(...), getAction(...), and removeRoute(...). Only the path will be considered in the match.

View Routes

You can get an array of all the route patterns currently in the routes:

routes.routes();

You can get an array of all the actions currently in the routes:

routes.actions();

Get the action if the passed route string matches a route pattern. Undefined if not found:

routes.getAction('/...');

Get the route pattern that the passed route string matches. Undefined if not found:

routes.getRouteMatch('/...');

View a neater layout of the current route patterns in the router. If the function passed is a named function statement the function name will show. Otherwise the function will print.

routes.toString();

// ROUTE                ACTION              
// /index.html          index                   
// /blog/article/*      articles                   
// **                   default      

Named function statements (as opposed to a function literal) will help with this table. If using a function constructor then using a named function will be helpful:

Controller = new function() {

  this.index = function index() {
    ...
  };

  this.create = function() {

  };
};

let main_controller = new Controller();
main_controller.index.name; // index
main_controller.create.name; // ''

Remove Routes

You can remove an individual route pattern:

routes.removeRoute('/blog/articles/**');

You can remove all routes:

routes.clearAll();

Extending Routes

You can extend the routes using the class extend syntax available in node >6.11

const SimpleRoutes = require('simple-routes');

class MyRoutes extends SimpleRoutes {
  // override functions as you wish
  ...
};

Errors

The following are functions and conditions that will throw errors:

• addRoute(route, action)

  • route does not exist or is not a type string.
  • action does not exist or is not a function.

• addRoutes(list)

  • list does not exist or is not an array.