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Node.js express - get route params without going into the route function for quick analytics tracking

I aim to send an analytics event for each route in my API. As opposed to saving an event with the entire full route that was called, I want to save the base url as the event and the parameters of the route as variables of the event. For example, when saving an analytics event...
Not this:
{
event_title: "API User Event"
category: "domain.com/api/user_routes/route_1/value_of_param_one"
}
But this:
{
event_title: "API User Event"
category: "domain.com/api/user_routes/route_1"
params: {
param_one: "value_of_param_one"
}
}
I'd like to have a global function that gets the parameters from the request variable, however, if you do this on a higher level (not route level)
app.use('/api/user_routes/*', myWrapperFunction)
myWrapperFunction will detect anything after /api/user_routes as parameters. From my experiments, I was only able to successfully detect the actual parameters inside a specific route function. However, that approach requires me to either edit each route function or wrap it like so...
router.get('/route_1/:param_one', (req, res) => Utility.analyticsEvent(userController.routeOneFunction, req, res));
router.get('/route_2/:param_one', (req, res) => Utility.analyticsEvent(userController.routeTwoFunction, req, res));
router.get('/route_3/:param_one', (req, res) => Utility.analyticsEvent(userController.routeThreeFunction, req, res));
Is there a way to detect the actual parameters of the route without actually going into the function itself? Or is this a limitation on express because it won't know the specifics of the route until it finds the first matching option traversing down the routes?
Edit If there is no way to know the parameters before express matches the specific route: is there a function that you can run before executing the route function that will tell you which route will be matched and will specify the parameters?
Welcome all comments!

I think one approach is to write a middleware like below.
// This will get executed before every request. As we'll add this with app.use() with top level middlewares
function customMiddleware (req, res, next) {
let url = req.baseUrl;
// some if else logic to re-route
if( url.includes('/api/user_routes')) {
let urlSplit = url.split();
if( url[urlSplit.length() - 1] == 'param_one' ) {
res.redirect('/api/user_routes/route_1')
}
else if(url[urlSplit.length() - 1] == 'param_tow' ) {
res.redirect('/api/user_routes/route_1')
}
// and so on
} else {
// executes other middleware or go to matching route
next()
}
}
app.use(customMiddleware)

Found a way to do it after the call is made by overwriting the response.json function
app.use(function (req, res, next) {
var json = res.json;
res.json = function (body) {
// Send analytics event before returning response
try {
// Routes that don't need to be tracked with analytics
let notIncludeRoutes = [
"some_not_tracked_route"
];
let route = req.baseUrl + req.route.path;
if(notIncludeRoutes.indexOf(route) === -1) {
// Track route and params
let route_params = res.req.params;
Utility.analyticsEvent(route, route_params);
}
} catch(error) {
// Don't block call if there was an error with analytics, but do log it
console.log("ANALYTICS ERROR: ", error);
}
json.call(this, body);
};
next();
});

Node.JS returns a 404 on interrogation of an endpoint that actually exists

I have a web application, started by a previous company, written in Angular.JS. The application exposes a request towards the back-end (written in Node.JS+Express) to gather some data required to fill a table. Specifically, this is the request that the application sends everytime the user enters in the page that holds the table (The config variable holds the access token).
return $http.get(API + '/api/myPath/for/Having/Data', config).then(handleSuccess, handleError);
handleSuccess and handleError are so defined
handleSuccess: function (res) {
debugger;
var deferred = $q.defer();
res.data.success ? deferred.resolve(res.data) : deferred.reject(res.data.message);
return deferred.promise;
},
handleError: function (error) {
return {
success: false,
message: error
};
}
In my back-end I've put an a listener to whatever gets called with the "/api" prefix, like this
app.use('/api', authorization.validateToken);
And another listener, that should work only if there is no match (written at the very end of the file that handles all the general inquiries of the app)
app.all('*', (req, res) => {
console.log('Hi, Stack Overflow!');
res.send({
success: false,
status: 404,
message: 'Invalid Uri Resource'
});
});
And, lastly, this is the endpoint that should get called in the back-end from Angular.js
app.get('/api/myPath/for/Having/Data', something.somethingToCall);
Here's the funny part: for a reason that I still have to understand, Angular.JS calls that endpoint twice, resulting in one failing procedure (404) and another one that goes smoothly (200).
The operation flow should be like this: Angular calls the back-end --> Node checks the validity of the token --> executes operation if everything goes okay.
The operation is called twice (seen thanks to the Visual Studio Code debugger and Chrome's Network Monitor) and, even though the token's validation process is correctly executed everytime, the first time the next() function will hold the app.all() listener.
Also,even before I start debugging the first request that is sent out, the JavaScript console on Google Chrome warns me that there has been an error such as like "Cannot read property 'data' of undefined", meaning that the request gets executed twice with the first time returning a 404.
exports.validateToken = (req, res, next) => {
console.log(`check user here`);
// next();
var token = //I take the token
console.log(token);
if (token) {
jwt.verify(token, require('../../secret'), (err, decoded) => {
if (err) {
res.send({
success: false,
status: 500,
tokenExpired: true,
message: "Effettua nuovamente l'accesso"
});
} else {
req.decoded = decoded;
next();
}
});
} else {
res.send({
success: false,
status: 406, // Fprbidden
message: 'User not Authenticated'
});
}
};
Does anybody know how to help me somehow?
EDIT: this is an example of how Chrome's sees both requests. The screenshot, in particular, refers to the first one that gets called and produces the 404
The CORS is handled in the back-end like this
app.use(function (req, res, next) {
if (req.headers.origin && (req.headers.origin.match("http:\/\/somewebsite.com.*") || req.headers.origin.match("http:\/\/localhost:8010") )) {
res.header("Access-Control-Allow-Origin", req.headers.origin);
}
next();
});
Also, I'm adding the endpoint that needs to be called. This also exploits MongoDB + Mongoose for querying the DataBase and return stuff to the front-end. The parameters that I'm passing are pageSize (how many elements per page) and the current page number
exports.getAds = (req, res) => {
var criteria = req.body || {};
var pageSize = criteria['pageSize'] ? Number(criteria['pageSize']) : undefined;
var pageNumber = criteria['pageNumber'] ? Number(criteria['pageNumber']) : undefined;
var sort = criteria.sort || { createdAt: 'desc' };
if (criteria.customerName) criteria.customerName = { $regex: `.*${criteria.customerName}.*`, $options: 'i' };
if (criteria.spentEuros) criteria.spentEuros.$gte = criteria.spentEuros;
if (criteria.referralMail) criteria.referralMail = { $regex: `.*${criteria.referralMail}.*`, $options: 'i' };
console.log(criteria);
var columns = "customerName duration spentEuros";
if (pageSize && pageNumber) {
Adv.paginate(criteria, {
page: pageNumber,
limit: pageSize,
select: columns,
sort: sort
}, function (err, result) {
if (!err) res.status(200).send({ success: true, data: result });
else res.status(500).send({ success: false, message: err });
});
} else {
Adv.find(criteria)
.select(columns)
.sort(sort)
.exec(function (err, result) {
if (!err) res.status(200).send({ success: true, data: result });
else res.status(500).send({ success: false, message: err });
});
}
};
EDIT2: Solution to the question: adding an app.options listener in the back-end (as pointed out by #slebetman), alongside with the already existing app.get one, solved the issue

Here's the funny part: for a reason that I still have to understand, Angular.JS calls that endpoint twice...
That sounds a lot like the browser sending a CORS preflight OPTIONS request, followed by a GET. Check the HTTP verb being used, and be sure you're handling OPTIONS (not just GET) if you need to support CORS on your endpoint. (If you're not expecting this to be a cross-origin request, check the origin of the page relative to the origin of the API call, something [protocol, port, domain] seems to be different — if it's an OPTIONS call.)

Pass data from express route into node module export function

I am new to node, I think I need to use middleware, but I can't warp my head around what it is actually used for, or if this is where it is meant to be used. I have data that is being posted from my view into an express route.
ROUTE - route.js
var GetPlayer = require('./models/getPlayer.js');
module.exports = function(app) {
app.post('/api/getPlayer', function(req, res) {
//GetPlayer.apiGetPlayer(req.body.username);
console.log(req.body.username); //this logs the correct data
});
}
but now I need to pass that data into a node api call and send that response back to the client. But I can not get the route to call that function or pass the data into it.
MODULE.EXPORT - getPlayer.js
module.exports = {
apiGetPlayer: function(error, res) {
console.log("in get player");
console.log(res);
}
}

You would only want to use an Express middleware if this is something you want to do for more than one route (ie. parsing request body's from JSON to actual Object using body-parser). That seems like it could be overkill based on the supplied code. One way to approach this is to just take the username and pass a callback function in to getPlayer. Then when the callback function passed to apiGetPlayer() returns, respond back to the requester based on the result of apiGetPlayer().
getPlayer.js
module.exports =
// callback is an error-first callback function
apiGetPlayer: function(username, callback) {
let err;
let player;
// Logic for getting player go here
// If an error occurs return an error to the callback
if (err)
return callback(err, null);
return callback(null, player);
}
}
/api/getPlayer route
app.post('/api/getPlayer', (req, res) => {
GetPlayer.apiGetPlayer(req.body.username, (err, player) => {
if (err)
return res.status(500).send(err);
return res.status(200).send(player);
});
});

Break program flow with express.js

I wonder what would be the proper way of breaking the flow of the program and redirect to some route.
Something like the equivalent of a header redirection but using route names instead of the complete URL.
This is quite common to be found in PHP frameworks and quite powerful, and I haven't found yet the way of doing it with express.js.
Imagine this scenario:
function getUser() {
//...
//getting user..
//Here I would like to break the flow of the program
if (error) {
res.redirect('add');
}
//If there was no error we keep the normal flow
//...
}
router.get('/add', function (req, res, next) {
var user = getUser();
var date = //whatever
var type = //whatever
var event = createEvent(user, date, type);
res.render('add', {
date: date,
type: type,
whatever: whatever,
csrfToken: req.csrfToken(),
message: req.flash('error')
});
});
A normal render wouldn't be what I want, because I don't want having to get again all the variables needed to render the view, I would like the route I want to redirect to deal with it.
I was thinking about using writeHead, but that would require the whole URL, not just the route URL.
Any ideas or recommendations?

You could return false or null or some other value from getUser() to indicate a break. Or check the state of the response (e.g. check res._headerSent === true or res.finished === true).
Another possibility might be to look into making getUser() a middleware function. Example:
function getUser(req, res, next) {
// ...
if (error)
return res.redirect('add');
// If there was no error we keep the normal flow
// ...
// you would add user data to `req` here instead of returning it
req.user = ...
next();
}
router.get('/add', getUser, function(req, res, next) {
var user = req.user;
var date = //whatever
var type = //whatever
var event = createEvent(user, date, type);
res.render('add', {
date: date,
type: type,
whatever: whatever,
csrfToken: req.csrfToken(),
message: req.flash('error')
});
});

LoopBack: cannot call method 'post' of undefined

I am new to loopback and node.js.
I have created two models: Rating and RatingsAggregate
using the loopback explorer, I can query and post against the API just fine.
I am try to setup some basic business logic so I am editing the file Rating.js in common/models
Here is the content of it:
module.exports = function(Rating) {
Rating.afterRemote('**', function(ctx, inst, next) {
var loopback = require('loopback');
var app = loopback();
var ratingsaggregate = app.models.ratingsaggregate;
ratingsaggregate.post({"source":"foobar","restaurantID":"foobar","itemMenuName":"foobar","itemSectionName":"foobar","itemName":"foobar","nRatings1":123,"nRatings2":123,"nRatings3":123,"nRatings4":123,"nRatings5":123,"hasImage":true,"imageSize":123,"latestImageRatingID":"foobar","imageCount":123,"lastUpdated":"foobar"}, function(err, response) {
if (err) console.error(err);
next();
});
});
};
I can load my API, but whenever I run a get statement against it, I get this error:
TypeError: Cannot call method 'post' of undefined
My guess is that somehow ratingsaggregate never gets a value... but I don't know what I am doing wrong. Obviously this is not the end state of my business logic, but I am trying some basic CRUD right now between two models

And... here is the answer. There was a getModel function hidden in the documentation
module.exports = function(Rating) {
Rating.afterRemote('create', function(ctx, inst, next) {
var loopback = require('loopback');
var ratingsaggregate = loopback.getModel('ratingsaggregate');
ratingsaggregate.create({"source":"foobar","restaurantID":"foobar","itemMenuName":"foobar","itemSectionName":"foobar","itemName":"foobar","nRatings1":123,"nRatings2":123,"nRatings3":123,"nRatings4":123,"nRatings5":123,"hasImage":true,"imageSize":123,"latestImageRatingID":"foobar","imageCount":123,"lastUpdated":"foobar"}, function(err, response) {
if (err) console.error(err);
next();
});
});
};
Fixes everything and the behaviour is the expected one