Allow Passing in Route Middleware on Resource

[mhemesath]

It would be nice to be able to set route middleware. Specifically, when mapping the users resource:
var user = app.resource('users', require('./user'));

It would be great to do something like:

var user = app.resource('users', require('./user'), { before: authenticateUser });

which is would be the equivalent of
app.get('/users', authenticateUser, require('./user').index);

[tj]

yeah its a bit tough since certain actions will want some middleware, some will not, which is why in general I'm not a huge fan of rails-ish stuff haha, but we will figure out something that works

[mhemesath]

what about allowing for the action to be a function, or an array of functions if middleware is involved?

exports.index = function(req, res){
res.send('forum index');
};

or

exports.index = [authenticateUser, function(req, res){
res.send('forum index');
}];

[tj]

i dunno, i just dont want it to become more ugly than just using app.get() and friends

[mhemesath]

Yeah, app.get works fine, especially with app.param, thats what I'm doing now. The routes are very clean, I'm just lazy and don't like typing them all out :p

[emostar]

It looks like this isn't being advanced. How can I get middleware working? Instead of

app.resource

Use

app.(get|post|etc) ?

[flockonus]

+1 Middleware working would be a huge plus, since I am trying to do a API that requires auth for it routes, like so:

app.get('admin/*', [mustAuth], function(req, res, next){
  if( req.authed ){
    next()
  } else {
    res.json(['must auth'])
  }
});

app.resource('admin/users',  require('./users'));

And this isn't working. Any insights?

[tj]

that looks ok @flockonus, that's essentially what express-resource middleware would be expanding to

[flockonus]

Thanks! In this case, the Middleware request may be postponed :P

I just had 1 slash wrong..

For anyone looking for future references;

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

   if( req.session.authed ){
     next()
   } else {
     res.json(['must auth'])
   }
 });

 app.resource('admin/users',  require('./users'));

That means that all requests beginning by /admin... will be filtered and resources bellow will be unavailable unless session.authed is set

[j-mcnally]

I implimented applying middleware to all resource routes however the middleware array must always be present because i havent worked out checking types and moving params yet. Also i plan to switch the middleware array for an object that would let u define seperate middleware to each action, here what i got so far:

https://gist.github.com/1155433

[erick2red]

@flockonus. That's works. and that will have to till they decide to include middleware route to the module. Thxs

[secretfader]

Any updates on this issue?

[tj]

i still feel gross about the api, at this point the resource stuff looks worse than some simple app.VERB calls, i wouldnt mind brainstorming some nicer alternatives

[secretfader]

I hear that. I've been trying to think of alternatives myself, and have resorted to namespaces until I find a better resource oriented API.

I'll try to put some time in on this idea during the week ahead. I've reached the point where namespacing is getting ugly, and I crave something cleaner.

[tj]

yeah i dont like namespaces either. personally i think there's nothing cleaner or simpler than just listing them out https://github.com/visionmedia/express/blob/master/examples/route-separation/app.js#L24

sure it's a bit verbose, but it's dead simple to implement, simple to scan, simple to grep if necessary.

perhaps just:

app.resource('users', users)
  .use(authenticateUser)
  .use(whatever)

but that obscures placing middleware specifically after, though that is usually less important

[tj]

I guess my point is that these sort of abstractions always get in the way, but I agree we need something