So, I was told that passing around the request
and or response
variable in nodeJS is "bad practice". But this means that most of your code has to be in the server.js file, making it cluttered and kind of ugly.
How can you modularize your nodejs server, passing around req/res
appropriately and be able to organize your code into separate files?
For example, I would like to split my socket routing, .get
and .post
into different files, but still be able to use the callback parameters like so:
app.io.route("disconnect", function(req,res) { <--- these params
db.query("UPDATE player_data SET online=0 WHERE id="+mysql.escape(req.session.user));
req.io.broadcast("event", {msg:req.session.username+" has logged out!"});
app.io.broadcast("reloadXY");
});
As of right now they're all in one file and I don't like that.
I think what the person meant by 'passing around' was something like this (in plain express):
app.get('/kittens', function(req, res) {
db.doAthing(req);
updateSomethingElse(res);
upvoteThisAnswer(res);
});
That is, passing around the two variables beyond the first function. This is bad because it becomes increasingly difficult to figure out where the call actually ends. One little res.end(500)
in updateSomethingElse
can cause the whole house of cards to come tumbling down.
It's perfectly ok (in fact, standard to the point of being the default in express) to declare that callback elsewhere (usually the /routes
directory of your project.)
// app.js
var user = require('./routes/user')
, kittens = require('./routes/kittens');
// express stuff...
app.get('/settings', user.getSettings);
app.get('/fur', kittens.shed);
Then, in routes/user.js
:
exports.getSettings = function(req, res) {
// Note how we're passing around properties of req/res, not the objects themselves.
db.getUserSettings(req.user.id).then(function(settings) {
res.render('settings', settings);
});
};
This video from TJ Holowaychuk (the guy who wrote Express and a ton of other Node infrastructure that we all use) helped me take Express modularization to the next level. Basically you can make individual apps in their own folders and consume them as middleware very easily. I have managed to extend this technique to socket.io with some tricks.
http://vimeo.com/56166857
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