URL Rewriting with ExpressJS

Question

I would like to rewrite my URLs on my ExpressJS website. I've used this plugin, https://github.com/joehewitt/express-rewrite, but it doesn't work...

However, I might have made a mistake...

My app.js file :

var express = require('express')
    , index = require('./routes/index.js')
    , admin = require('./routes/admin.js')
    , contact = require('./routes/contact.js')
    , posts = require('./routes/posts.js')
    , http = require('http')
    , path = require('path')
    , hash = require('./auth').hash
    , db = require('./models')
    , favicons = require('connect-favicons')
    , rewriter = require('express-rewrite');


var app = express();

app.configure(function () {
    app.set('port', process.env.PORT || 3000);
    app.set('views', __dirname + '/views');
    app.set('view engine', 'jade');
    app.use(express.favicon(__dirname + '/public/images/FAVICON.ico'));
    app.use(favicons(__dirname + '/public/images/apple-touch-icon.png'));
    app.use(express.logger('dev'));
    app.use(express.bodyParser());
    app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));
    app.use(express.cookieParser());
    app.use(express.cookieSession({
            secret: 'SECRET',
            cookie: { access: false }
        })
    );
    app.use(rewriter);
    app.use(app.router);
    app.use(function(req, res, next){
        res.render('404.jade', {
            title: "404 - Page Not Found",
            showFullNav: false,
            status: 404,
            url: req.url
        });
    });
});

app.configure('development', function () {
    app.use(express.errorHandler());
});

app.get('/', index.index);

app.get('/toto', rewriter.rewrite('/heytoto'));

db.sequelize.sync().complete(function(err) {
    if (err) {
        throw err
    } else {
        http.createServer(app).listen(app.get('port'), function(){
            console.log('Express server listening on port ' + app.get('port'))
        })
    }
});

My error message :

Express
500 TypeError: Object function app(req, res){ app.handle(req, res); } has no method 'match'
at Object.rewriter [as handle] (/Users/anthonycluse/Sites/Anthony-Cluse-Express/node_modules/express-rewrite/rewrite.js:3:26)
at next (/Users/anthonycluse/Sites/Anthony-Cluse-Express/node_modules/express/node_modules/connect/lib/proto.js:199:15)
at Object.cookieSession [as handle] (/Users/anthonycluse/Sites/Anthony-Cluse-Express/node_modules/express/node_modules/connect/lib/middleware/cookieSession.js:113:5)
at next (/Users/anthonycluse/Sites/Anthony-Cluse-Express/node_modules/express/node_modules/connect/lib/proto.js:199:15)
at Object.cookieParser [as handle] (/Users/anthonycluse/Sites/Anthony-Cluse-Express/node_modules/express/node_modules/connect/lib/middleware/cookieParser.js:60:5)
at next (/Users/anthonycluse/Sites/Anthony-Cluse-Express/node_modules/express/node_modules/connect/lib/proto.js:199:15)
at resume (/Users/anthonycluse/Sites/Anthony-Cluse-Express/node_modules/express/node_modules/connect/lib/middleware/static.js:60:7)
at SendStream.error (/Users/anthonycluse/Sites/Anthony-Cluse-Express/node_modules/express/node_modules/connect/lib/middleware/static.js:73:37)
at SendStream.EventEmitter.emit (events.js:126:20)
at SendStream.error (/Users/anthonycluse/Sites/Anthony-Cluse-Express/node_modules/express/node_modules/send/lib/send.js:147:51)

Answer 1

Try this:

app.get('/toto', function(req, res) {
  res.redirect('/heytoto');
});

Answer 2

You could rewrite the URL before you get to the handler you want to use.

app.use(function(req, res, next) {
   if (req.url === '/toto') {
     req.url = '/heytoto';
   }
   next();
});

app.get('/heytoto', ...);

I've used a similar method to do URL rewrites with regular expressions.

Answer 3

A solution that works without response.sendfile(..) is to use a rewrite middleware that is inserted prior to app.use(express.static(..)) like this:

// forward all requests to /s/* to /index.html

app.use(function(req, res, next) {

  if (/\/s\/[^\/]+/.test(req.url)) {
    req.url = '/index.html';
  }

  next();
});

// insert express.static(...)

This way, expressjs properly recognizes the rewrite. The static middleware will then take care of serving the file.

Answer 4

So I had sort of the same issue. I wrote an app that uses the history API on browsers and I wanted to rewrite all non-static URLs back to index.html. So for static files I did:

app.configure(function() {
  app.use('/', express.static(__dirname + '/'));
});

But then for the history API generated paths I did:

app.get('*', function(request, response, next) {
  response.sendfile(__dirname + '/index.html');
});

This meant that any request that wasn't a file or directory in / (such as a URL generated by the history API) wouldn't be rewritten or redirected but instead the index.html file will be served and that then does all the JS routing magic.

Hopefully that's close to what you're looking for?

Answer 5

you could check the url with an if condition and use app.redirect to redirect to a certain url.