node-resources helping modularize your Restify or Express application.

node-resources

When working on Restify or ExpressJS applications you usually see a file structure based on routes, models and views.

  |_app.js
  |_routes
  | |_hello.js
  |_models
  | |_hello.js
  |_views
    |_hello
      |_index.ejs
      |_edit.ejs

</code>

This structure is very common to other MVC frameworks as well.

I found that this structure works well for small or medium size projects but after a while it can get a bit out of control. The main problem is that code that belong together and is relate is split all over the place what makes developing small modules in isolation very complicate.

I prefer the following code organization.

  |_app.js
  |_resources
    |_hello
      |_index.js
      |_handlers.js
      |_models
      | |_hello.js
      |_views
        |_index.ejs
        |_edit.ejs

This approach makes each module self contained.

Caveats

You want to make sure that inter-dependency between this modules is keep to a minimum.

Usage

Install as usual via npm

npm install node-resources

To use the structure above you should do the following.

  var resources = require('node-resources');
  resources.registerRoutes(server, {path: __dirname + "/resources"});

Api

The module exports only one method registerRoutes(server, options)
The options argument can have two properties.

options.path

This is mandatory and if not passed it should throw an Error.

options.pattern

You can use this property to specify a pattern to search for a file inside the module to require. This is useful if you don’t want to use an index.js file in each module or if you want to give use for something different.

Ex: given you have the following module.

  |_cars
    |_cars.routes.js
    |_handlers.js
    |_models
    | |_cars.js
    |_views
      |_list.ejs

Your options.pattern should be [folder].routes.js.
The [folder] token is the only one accepted in the pattern and will be replaced by the folder name at the root of the module.

Coming soon…

Adding dependency management and injection to the routers.
Maybe even doc generation for the application API, routes, methods and parameters.