Resource-based route organization in Express - Mini Project: Build & Apply

Resource-based route organization in Express

📖 Scenario: You are building a simple web server for a bookstore. You want to organize your routes by resource type to keep your code clean and easy to maintain.

🎯 Goal: Create an Express app that organizes routes for the books resource using resource-based route organization. You will set up the initial data, configure a router, add core route handlers, and complete the app to listen on a port.

📋 What You'll Learn

Create an Express app with a books array containing book objects

Create a router for books routes

Add GET route handlers for /books and /books/:id

Make the app use the books router under the /books path

Start the server listening on port 3000

💡 Why This Matters

🌍 Real World

Organizing routes by resource helps keep server code clean and maintainable, especially as projects grow.

💼 Career

Understanding Express routers and resource-based route organization is essential for backend web development jobs using Node.js.

1

Set up initial data and Express app

Create an Express app by requiring express and calling express(). Then create a books array with these exact objects: { id: 1, title: '1984' }, { id: 2, title: 'Brave New World' }, and { id: 3, title: 'Fahrenheit 451' }.

Express

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

// Your code here

Need a hint?

Remember to require Express and call it to create your app. Then create the books array with the exact objects.

2

Create a router for books

Create a router by calling express.Router() and assign it to a variable called booksRouter.

Express

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

const books = [
  { id: 1, title: '1984' },
  { id: 2, title: 'Brave New World' },
  { id: 3, title: 'Fahrenheit 451' }
];

// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use express.Router() to create a router for the books resource.

3

Add GET routes to the books router

Add a GET route handler on booksRouter for path '/' that sends the full books array as JSON. Also add a GET route handler on booksRouter for path '/:id' that finds a book by id from books and sends it as JSON. Use req.params.id and convert it to a number to find the book.

Express

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

const books = [
  { id: 1, title: '1984' },
  { id: 2, title: 'Brave New World' },
  { id: 3, title: 'Fahrenheit 451' }
];

const booksRouter = express.Router();

// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use booksRouter.get to add route handlers. Use res.json() to send JSON responses.

4

Use the router and start the server

Make the Express app use booksRouter for the path '/books' by calling app.use('/books', booksRouter). Then start the server listening on port 3000 using app.listen(3000).

Express

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

const books = [
  { id: 1, title: '1984' },
  { id: 2, title: 'Brave New World' },
  { id: 3, title: 'Fahrenheit 451' }
];

const booksRouter = express.Router();

booksRouter.get('/', (req, res) => {
  res.json(books);
});

booksRouter.get('/:id', (req, res) => {
  const id = Number(req.params.id);
  const book = books.find(b => b.id === id);
  res.json(book);
});

// Your code here

Need a hint?

Use app.use to connect the router and app.listen to start the server.