apache mod_rewrite equivalent for node.js?

Question

Is there an equivalent module for Node.js that does what Apache's mod_rewrite does? or is there a standard language construct that provides equivalent functionality?

I'm just getting started with Node and looking to convert my server to this platform.

Answer 1

If you are looking for a good modrewrite library. You might want to look at connect-modrewrite

Answer 2

If you have a HTTP server running with NodeJS you have 2 objects, request and response. The request contains the requested url. Using a require('url') you can parse this requested url and for example get the pathname that's requested.

What you then do with it, is up to your own code obviously. So based on the default example on www.nodejs.org you'd end up with something like this:

var http = require('http');
http.createServer(function (req, res) {
  var requestedURL = require('url').parse( req.url );
  res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'text/plain'});
  res.write( "You requested " + requestedURL.pathname + "\n" );
  res.end('Hello World\n');
}).listen(1337, "127.0.0.1");

Which you can test with http://127.0.0.1:1337/foo/bar. Where you can use requestedURL.pathname to determine what you'd want to do, ideally you'd create your own - or use a 3rd party - routing library. They are available, ExpressJS is a pretty famous NodeJS framework which might help take care of a lot of things for you, but I have no experience with it myself.

More information:

• Now dead: [http://www.robsearles.com/2010/05/31/nodejs-tutorial-part-2-routing/]
• http://expressjs.com/