High level overview of Steps to make a MERN stack app(CRUD) - PART 2

Chapter 2 - Express Router

1) In your backend directory create a folder routes (in routes we will store various .js files related to specific API endpoints)

2) Inside routes folder create reddit.js (or any name)- Basically this file stores all 'Relative Routes' of a specific type relative to '/..../reddit'.

3) In reddit.js import express and using it create express Router instance in router & using router we can handle specific relative route based API requests (just like we did using app in server.js) and export router using module.exports at end of this file

const express=require('express')
const router=express.Router()

router.get('/',(req,res)=>{})

module.exports=router

4) Import the particular router from respective .js file from routes folder (in backend dir.) to server.js and name it redditRouter (in this case) then pass redditRouter to global middleware app.use('/api/reddit',redditRouter) [or with any specific route as first argument].

//call dotenv config function
require('dotenv').config()

const express=require('express')
const app=express()

//Import the particular router from respective .js file from routes folder here
const redditRouter=require('./routes/reddit')

// global middleware
app.use((req,res,next) => {
console.log(req.path, req.method)
// calling next tells the control to go to next middlewares
next()
})
// middlewares with various routes

app.use('/api/reddit',redditRouter)

app.get('/',(req,res)=>{ 
  res.json({apoo:'cxhxxn'}) 
})

app.listen(process.env.PORT, () => {
 console.log(`listeneing on port ${process.env.PORT}!!!`)
})

NOTE- the middlewares we write in reddit.js like router.get('/',(req,res)=>{}). These will have relative routes which means - the route is actually '/api/reddit/' not '/'.

5) Let's now make some APIs and test/save them on POSTMAN, by attaching various middlewares to router instance in reddit.js file.

const express=require('express')
const router=express.Router()

// GET (Read) information on all reddits
router.get('/',(req,res)=>{
res.json({message:"GET all reddits"})
})

// GET information on a single reddit with a given id
router.get('/:id',(req,res)=>{
res.json({message:"GET a single reddit with given id"})
})

// POST (Create) a new reddit with given information(which we access via req.body)
router.post('/',(req,res)=>{
res.json({message:"POST a new reddit"})
})

// Delete a reddit with a given id
router.delete('/:id',(req,res)=>{
res.json({message:"DELETE a single reddit"})
})

// PATCH (Update) a single reddit
router.patch('/:id',(req,res)=>{
res.json({message:"PATCH a single reddit"})
})

module.exports=router

6) Add another 'global' middleware/request handler- app.use(express.json()) in server.js - We are basically doing this to make sure we can access extra data that user sends from request methods like patch,post etc in any middleware of those types in respective .js file.

//call dotenv config function
require('dotenv').config()

const express=require('express')
const app=express()

//Import the particular router from respective .js file from routes folder here
const redditRouter=require('./routes/reddit')

// global middleware
app.use((req,res,next) => {
console.log(req.path, req.method)
// calling next tells the control to go to next middlewares
next()
})
// middlewares with various routes

app.use(express.json()) // HERE WE ADDED IT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

app.use('/api/reddit',redditRouter)

app.get('/',(req,res)=>{ 
  res.json({apoo:'cxhxxn'}) 
})

app.listen(process.env.PORT, () => {
 console.log(`listeneing on port ${process.env.PORT}!!!`)
})

NOTE- To access the user sent data in middlewares like router.post('/',(req,res)=>{}) we use req.body which we will use later on in this CRUD app.

7) Test & Save your APIs in POSTMAN.

....... to be cont. in PART 3

High level overview of Steps to make a MERN stack app(CRUD) - PART 2

Chapter 2 - Express Router

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