Intro to using Express.js Router

When we start bringing in routes to Express.JS, we want to separate routes into another folder.

This what our file structure should look like

___________________
> Node_modueles
> Routes
— — — home.js
— — — users.js
app.js
package-lock.json
package.json

_____________________

In each route file, we will want to import express and Router()

const express = require(‘express’);
//this is like createing a mini express app, or a pluggin
const router = express.Router();
//syntax include, remeber that all of these are functions.
router.use; //important to keep in mind that this does not to an exact route match
//get, post, put, delete will all do and exact route match
router.get;
router.post;
router.put;
//not one hundered on this but I’m sure that destroy is something like this
router.delete;
module.exports = router;

To use our new route files, we have to import them and call them with the use() express method.

//IN app.js
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
const myRoute = require('./routes/<file name>');
const anotherRoute = require('./routes/<another file name>')
const bodyParser = require('body-parser')
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({extended: false}))
app.use(myRoute)
app.use(anotherRoute)
app.listen(3000)
//easy peasy

Let us make a 404 error.

//js executes from top to bottom
...
app.use((req, res, next)=>{
 res.status(404).send('<h1>Page not found</h1>');
 })
//we can always chain res whit .status(code number) or .setHeaders(header)
app.listen(3000)

filtering Paths

Another cool feature of express.js is we can filter paths.

//all we have to do is add and argument to app.use('/route', routeName)
...
app.use('/admin', adminRoutes)
app.listen(3000)
// keep in mind this only works if your have to routes with the same path but not the same method like so
router.get('/add-product', (req, res, next) => {
  res.send('<form action="/admin/add-product" method="POST"><input type="text" name="title"><button>Add Product</button></form>')
});
//notice that the acton still uses /admin that is becuse we will still be going to /admin/add-product
router.post('/add-product', (req, res, next) => {
  console.log((req.body.title))
  res.redirect('/')
})
//again we redirect to /admin/add-product