node.js - Forward request to alternate request handler instead of redirect

Question

I'm using Node.js with express and already know the existence of response.redirect().

However, I'm looking for more of a forward() functionality similar to java that takes the same parameters as redirect, but internally forwards the request instead of having the client perform the redirect.

To clarify, I am not doing a proxy to a different server. I'd like to forward('/other/path') directly within the same app instance

It wasn't apparently obvious how to do this from the express documentation. Any help?

Answer 1

You just need to invoke the corresponding route handler function.

Option 1: route multiple paths to the same handler function

function getDogs(req, res, next) {
  //...
}}
app.get('/dogs', getDogs);
app.get('/canines', getDogs);

Option 2: Invoke a separate handler function manually/conditionally

app.get('/canines', function (req, res, next) {
   if (something) {
      //process one way
   } else {
      //do a manual "forward"
      getDogs(req, res, next);
   }
});

Option 3: call next('route')

If you carefully order your router patterns, you can call next('route'), which may achieve what you want. It basically says to express 'keep moving on down the router pattern list', instead of a call to next(), which says to express 'move down the middleware list (past the router)`.