If Express would be your web framework, look at the express-resource (Github) middleware for routing an API. You define resources and it'll wire up REST-style routing for you with very little boilerplate.
app.resource('horses', require('./routes/horses'), { format: json })
Given the above, express-resource will hook up all the REST-style routes to actions you supply, returning JSON by default. In routes/horses.js
, you export actions for that resource, along the lines of:
exports.index = function index (req, res) {
// GET http://yourdomain.com/horses
res.send( MyHorseModel.getAll() )
}
exports.show = function show (req, res) {
// GET http://yourdomain.com/horses/seabiscuit
res.send( MyHorseModel.get(req.params.horse) )
}
exports.create = function create (req, res) {
// PUT http://yourdomain.com/horses
if (app.user.canWrite) {
MyHorseModel.put(req.body, function (ok) { res.send(ok) })
}
}
// ... etc
You can respond with different representations:
exports.show = {
json: function (req, res) {
// GET http://yourdomain/horses/seabiscuit.json
}
, xml: function (req, res) {
// GET http://yourdomain/horses/seabiscuit.xml
}
}
Middlewares like express-resource can make life with Node and Express much easier, take a look through the examples on github to see if it'll do what you need.