Routes

Primate uses filesystem-based routes. Route files are files in the routes directory which requests map to. For example, the file at routes/user/profile.js is used to handle a request to /user/profile. The path may include parameters in brackets.

To illustrate this, consider that inside routes

Static routes

Static routes are simple routes not containing any path parameters. They are given the highest priority in request to route resolution.

Examples of static routes are user.js, foo/bar.js, or blog/view.js.

Static routes that end in index.js are considered to map to the last slash. Thus, user.js and user/index.js handle the same path. Primate will refuse to start if it encounters both variants.

Dynamic routes

Path parameters

Path parameters are placeholders for a range of values. They are surrounded by brackets, as in [user].js. Path parameter names are case sensitive, and a path may contain any number of them, though it must not contain the same parameter in the same case twice. They must be non-empty, i.e. matched by at least one character.

By default, parameters will match anything in the path except /. Primate also supports rest parameters that match slashes too.

Typed parameters

Parameters can be also runtime-typed, in which case their value can be restricted. [age=number] indicates that this path parameter must satisfy the runtime type defined in types/number.js for the route to be matched.

Optional parameters

Double brackets, as in user/[[action]].js, are equivalent to having two identical files, user.js and user/[action].js. In other words, routes containing optional parameters match with and without the parameter.

Optional parameters may only appear at the end of a route path.

You can combine optional and typed parameters.

Rest parameters

Brackets starting with three dots, as in user/[...action_tree].js, indicate a rest parameter. Unlike normal parameters, rest parameters match / as well and can be thus be used to construct subpaths. For example, in https://github.com/primatejs/primate/tree/master/docs/guide, docs/guide may be considered a subpath.

Rest parameters may only appear at the end of a route path. They may also be optional, that is, matching with and without the parameter, by using two brackets.

Optional rest parameters

Double brackets with three dots, as in user/[[...action_tree]].js, are equivalent to having two identical files, user.js and user/[...action_tree].js. In other words, routes containing optional rest parameters may match with and witout the greedy parameter.

In addition to normal parameters, there are greedy rest parameters in the form of [...rest] that also match / as part of the path. Rest parameters may only appear at the end of a route.

Optional rest parameters may only appear at the end of a route.

HTTP verbs

Every route file exports an object containing one or many HTTP verb functions.

export default {
  get() {
    return "this is a GET request";
  },
  post() {
    return "this is a POST request";
  },
};

In this example, accessing the path /user/profile using any of the specified verbs will return a plain-text response with the given string.

The request object

Route verb functions accept a single parameter representing request data. This aggregate object allows easy access to the request body, any path parameters defined with brackets, the query string split into parts, cookies as well as other headers and a reference to the original WHATWG Request object. The aggregate nature of this object allows you to pull in what you need using object destructuring.

body

The request body.

export default {
  post(request) {
    return `Hello, ${request.body.name}`;
  },
}

If a client sends a POST request to /your-name using the content type application/json and {"name": "Donald"} as body, this route will respond with 200 saying Hello, Donald.

Primate will attempt to decode the body according to the Content-Type header used in the request.

• application/x-www-form-urlencoded, which is primarily used in HTML forms, decodes the form fields into object properties
• application/json decodes the given JSON string using JSON.parse
• multipart/form-data decodes the given form using FormData, making files available as Blob objects and other fields as normal object properties

export default {
  post(request) {
    const { name } = request.body;

    if (name === undefined) {
      return "You haven't specified your name";
    }

    return `Hello, ${name}`;
  }
}

In this example, if a client sends a request to /your-full-name with a URL-encoded form (application/x-www-form-urlencoded) or JSON data (application/json) with a field name in its body, Primate will respond by saying Hello and the provided name.

path

The request's path, an object containing path parameters.

import error from "primate/handler/error";

const users = ["Donald", "Ryan"];

export default {
  post(request) {
    const user = request.path.get("user");

    if (users.includes(user)) {
      return `Hello, ${user}`;
    }

    return error("Unknown user");
  },
};

If a user requests POST /users/Donald or /users/Ryan, Primate will respond with 200, saying Hello. It will otherwise reply with 404 saying Unknown user.

We will later handle routes with parameters in depth.

query

The request's query string, broken down into its constituent parts.

import error from "primate/handler/error";

const users = ["Donald", "Ryan"];

export default {
  post(request) {
    const user = request.query.get("user");

    if (users.includes(user)) {
      return `Hello, ${user}`;
    }

    return error("Unknown user");
  },
};

If a user requests POST /users?user=Donald or /users?user=Ryan, Primate will respond with 200, otherwise with 404.

cookies

The request's Cookie header, broken down into individual cookies.

import error from "primate/handler/error";

const users = ["Donald", "Ryan"];

export default {
  post(request) {
    const user = request.cookies.get("user");

    if (users.includes(user)) {
      return `Hello, ${user}`;
    }

    return error("Unknown user");
  },
};

If a user requests POST /current-user with the Cookie header set to user=Donald or user=Ryan, Primate will respond with 200, otherwise with 404.

headers

The request's individual headers.

import error from "primate/handler/error";

const users = ["Donald", "Ryan"];

export default {
  post(request) {
    const user = request.headers.get("X-User");

    if (users.includes(user)) {
      return `Hello, ${user}`;
    }

    return error("Unknown user");
  },
};

If a user requests POST /current-x-user with a X-User header set to Donald or Ryan, Primate will respond with 200, otherwise with 404.

original

The original property of the request object provides access to the original WHATWG Request object.