Ultimate Node

Implementing Dynamic Routing

Mohit Vishwakarma's photo
Mohit Vishwakarma
·

2 min read

To create a more dynamic routing system, we need to differentiate responses based on the URL entered by the user. Here’s how we can achieve this:

  1. Extracting the URL: We can access the requested URL through the request parameter in our callback function. The request.url property contains the value entered after the root URL.

  2. Creating a Path Variable: We will create a variable called path and assign it the value of request.url. This allows us to determine which page the user is trying to access.

  3. Sending Different Responses: Based on the value of the path variable, we can send different responses. For example:

    • If the path is /, we will return a response indicating that the user is on the home page.

    • If the path is /home, we will also return a response for the home page.

    • If the path is /about, we will return a response for the about page.

    • If the path is /contact, we will return a response for the contact page.

Example Code Implementation

Here’s a simplified version of how the code would look:

const http = require('http');

const server = http.createServer((request, response) => {
    const path = request.url.toLowerCase();

    if (path === '/') {
        response.end('You are in home page');
    } else if (path === '/home') {
        response.end('You are in home page');
    } else if (path === '/about') {
        response.end('You are in about page');
    } else if (path === '/contact') {
        response.end('You are in contact page');
    } else {
        response.end('Error 404: Page not found');
    }
});

server.listen(8000);

Handling Unhandled Routes

One important aspect of routing is handling URLs that do not match any defined routes. For instance, if a user types /products, our server should not hang indefinitely. To prevent this, we implement a fallback route that returns a 404 error message when the requested URL does not match any of our defined routes.

Adding a Fallback Route

In our code, we added an else statement at the end of our routing logic to handle unrecognized paths. This ensures that if a user enters a URL that we are not handling, they receive a clear message indicating that the page was not found.

routingNode.js