One useful feature of Express is the ability to add routes after the server has started listening, which can be quite convenient. However, it's important to pay attention to precedence, as new routes will be added at the bottom of the stack.
A good practice would be to store routes in a database and load them into the router before starting the node app (rather than during runtime). This approach allows for easier scalability and safer restarts of the application.
In addition, consider implementing routes for adding, deleting, and updating routes dynamically within your application.
Below is a simple example demonstrating how to add a route after the server has started listening:
const app = require('express')();
const bodyParser = require('body-parser');
app.use(bodyParser.json());
const someGenericHandler = function(req, res) {
return res.json({ message: 'foobar' });
};
// Creating a new route
app.post('/routes', function(req, res) {
try {
const route = req.body;
app[route.method](route.path, someGenericHandler);
return res.json({ message: `Route '${route.method}${route.path}' added` });
} catch(err) {
return res.status(500).json({ message: err.message || 'An error occurred while adding the route' });
}
});
app.listen(process.env.PORT);
To test this code, save it in a file (e.g., index.js), run npm i express body-parser, then start the server with PORT=8080 node index.js. Send a POST request to http:/localhost:8080/routes with a JSON payload similar to { method: 'get', path:'/' }, and access your new route with a GET request @ http://localhost:8080/.
If you anticipate high user traffic, consider deploying a single app per user and a main app for user registration. You may also want to automate the process of spawning a small VPS per app upon user registration or implement request limits per user.
I hope this information proves helpful!