Catching route with parentheses in the path

Question

I have a NodeJS web application. I disseminated one route with this text:

great impact (learn more at emotionathletes.org/impact)

The route /impact exists, the route /impact) does not. Some email clients include the closing parenthesis in the route and I would like to redirect it. If I use:

router.get("/impact)", (req, res) => {
  res.redirect("/impact");
});

I get this error:

~/emotionathletes/server/node_modules/path-to-regexp/index.js:128
  return new RegExp(path, flags);
         ^

SyntaxError: Invalid regular expression: /^\/impact)\/?$/: Unmatched ')'

I understand that route strings serve as input to regular expressions, where parentheses serve to catch groups, and thus cannot contain parenthesis. Using HTML entities such as /impact%29 does not catch the route /impact).

One solution is a generic handler such as:

router.get("/:token", async (req, res, next) => {

  // Remove parenthesis in the route path.
  let newPath = req.originalUrl.replace(")", "").replace("(", "");
  if (newPath != req.originalUrl) {
    return res.redirect(newPath);
  }

  // Any other routes, such as 404.
  // ...
}

What is the proper way to catch routes with parentheses in NodeJS?

Answer 1

Try to use unicode expression [ \u0029 = )] with regex

router.get(/impact\u0029/, (req, res) => { ... }

I think your second approach is more appropriate if you have multiple routes having the same issue. If there is only one route, then you can use the above solution.