expressJS routing issue, simple stuff not resolving

Question

I've recently moved all my route code into separate files, but now my route resolution is spotty. Here's a simple example -

My app.js

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

var dataLoader = require('./routes/dataLoader');
app.all( '/api/load', dataLoader);

My dataLoader.js

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

router.get('/api/load', (req, res) => {
    res.send('Hello Loader...');
});

router.get('/api/load/bob', (req, res) => {
   res.send('Hello Loader - Bob...');
});

router.get('/api/load/jim', (req, res) => {
   res.send('Hello Loader - Jim...');
});

module.exports = router;

/api/load works fine, while /api/load/jim and /api/load/bob both result in:

Cannot GET /api/load/jim (or Cannot GET /api/load/bob, respectively) 

I user app.all() instead of app.use() because I was having an issue resolving the main path "/api/load", the use of all seemed to fix that, but now I am not sure.

"engines": { "node": "^8.9.1" }, "dependencies": { "bluebird": "^3.5.1", "body-parser": "^1.15.1", "express": "^4.13.4", "mongoose": "4.9.8" } any suggestions?

Answer 1

When you do this:

app.all( '/api/load', dataLoader);

And, then in the dataLoader router, you define routes like this:

router.get('/api/load', (req, res) => {
    res.send('Hello Loader...');
});

What you're actually doing is defining a route for api/load/api/load which is likely not what you want. The paths are cumulative.

The app.use() statement should have whatever common prefix applies to your entire router and then the paths on the router itself should be relative to that. In addition, you should use using app.use(), not app.all() for a router.

So, in your case, change the dataLoader router to this:

// whole router is configured at /api/loader
const router = require('express').Router();

router.get('/', (req, res) => {
    res.send('Hello Loader...');
});

router.get('/bob', (req, res) => {
   res.send('Hello Loader - Bob...');
});

router.get('/jim', (req, res) => {
   res.send('Hello Loader - Jim...');
});

module.exports = router;