Not a silly question at all.
In the most general terms, you want to:
- put your code into modules
- expose that code through module.export
- require that module wherever you may need it
Specific to express you could put your entire request handler in seperate
module:
var loginHandler = require('./loginHandler');
app.get('/login', loginHandler);
And then make sure that loginHandler.js does something like:
module.exports = function(req,res) { /* perform auth */ };
Or you could put smaller blocks of functionality into logical modules. For
example, your db storage code could live in one place:
var itemStore = require('./itemStore');
app.post('/item/:id', function(req,res) {
var item = req.body;
var id = req.params.id;
itemStore.saveItem(id, item, function(err, result) {
if (err) return res.send(err,500);
res.send(result);
});
});
The itemStore module could export several functions to make your life
easier:
module.exports.saveItem = function(id, data) { /* parse some data, save an
item */ };
module.exports.retrieveItem = function(id) { /* retrieve item, format data,
return data */ };
Another common and useful pattern is to have your module return classes.
So item store could be a class that you instantiate with config data and
reuse. I won't get into how to build up JavaScript classes but you could
build something that works along these lines:
var Store = require('genericStore');
var itemStore = new Store('items');
var userStore = new Store('users');
itemStore.init(/* some config or bootstrap data */);
userStore.init(/* some config or bootstrap data */);
itemStore.find(...);
userStore.updateName(...);
These are just a few patterns that I've found useful in various situations.
I don't think there's any right answer so don't be afraid of making
mistakes. Find out what works for you and then share it back with the
community.
-mitch
On Thursday, November 22, 2012 8:05:37 AM UTC-8, netpoetica wrote:
>
> I've been working with Node for a few months now, mainly out of books and
> tutorials, just sort of trying to get a handle on using JavaScript on the
> backend. It all seems well and good, but I'm still unclear about how to
> properly organize code in your Node program. For example, if I'm porting a
> completely client-side app over to Node, and I have functions that I
> normally use on the client side to, let say, build out an HTML widget, but
> I want to be able to access them from one of my route files as well so that
> I can build the widget behind the scenes and serve it up from the backend -
> where do you put this kind of code?
>
> Essentially, where do you put/how do you use model/controller
> functions/value objects/files across multiple views in an organized,
> modular manner?
>
> We all know we don't want to pollute the global namespace, but, there are
> some functions that will need to be used site-wide on both the client and
> server side. It seems silly to me to use a require for the same function to
> be stored in memory again if two separate routes will need that function in
> order to build their instance.
>
> Most of the tutorials I've seen and even some Github projects have these
> bloated app.js files where it seems they are storing the values globally -
> but even then there are instances where it's unclear whether or not
> specific routes (files starting with module.export = ) will have access to
> these values (let's say, Model-level functions and value objects).
>
> I hope this isn't completely silly. I've done a pretty good deal of
> research into this, and haven't quite found anything that really speaks to
> this. I'm completely open to being redirected to articles you may have
> found and/or Github repos where simply studying the structure would make
> this clearer. If it's any help, I'm mostly working with Express and using a
> routing structure similar to typical Express apps, and just curious how to
> share functions and objects across multiple views, and where to put them
> for proper loading.
>
> Thanks much, and happy thanksgiving!
>
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