How to optimize an Express.js route?

Question

I'm developing a reserved area that has the follow few pages:

/dashboard
/dashboard/profile
/dashboard/user
/dashboard/view

that's a simple user control panel. At the moment i have four routes:

app.all('/dashboard', function(req, res, next) { /* Code */ }); 
app.all('/dashboard/profile', function(req, res, next) { /* Code */ }); 
app.all('/dashboard/user', function(req, res, next) { /* Code */ }); 
app.all('/dashboard/view', function(req, res, next) { /* Code */ }); 

I would like to optimize it because in each of the above routes i have to call this function at the beginning:

authorized(req, function(auth){
   if (!auth) return next(errors.fire(403));
   /* route code */
});

This function checks if the user is logged, so i need to call it on every reserved page.

I would do something like:

app.all('/dashboard/*', function(req, res, next) { 

    authorized(req, function(auth){
       if (!auth) return next(errors.fire(403));           
       res.render(something, {})     
    });

});

the something inside the res.render call has to be the view (page) I need to open.

I want to call it ONE time, to remove redundant code.

That could be the home of the panel (if the user wants /dashboard) or the page (if the user wants a page inside /dashboard like /dashboard/profile) in the last case i need to render 'profile' view.

(I have to do a check before pass the view to render(), because if someone try /dashboard/blablablabla it should be a problem.)

Thank you

Answer 1

You can pass that function to each route as a route middleware, check http://expressjs.com/guide.html#route-middleware for more info. The idea would be this:

function mustBeAuthorized(req, res, next){
  /* Your code needed to authorize a user */
}

And then in each route:

app.all('/dashboard', mustBeAuthorized, function(req, res, next) { /* Code */ }); 

Or if your logic depends on a certain role for each route, you can make the route middleware like this:

function mustBeAuthorizedFor(role){
  return function(req, res, next){
     /* Your code needed to authorize a user with that ROLE */
  };
}

And then call it right away:

app.all('/dashboard', mustBeAuthorizedFor('dashboard'), function(req, res, next) { /* Code */ });