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🚀 Week 7 Day 7 — Express Router & Useful NPM Packages

Alright campers 🔥💙
I hope you’re rested, hydrated, and still coding with curiosity. I apologize for not posting these weeks-life happened.
Today is our last lesson for Express basics before we move to even bigger things.
🌳 BIG IDEA:
When your project grows, all your routes in app.js become messy and hard to manage.
👉 The solution?
📦 Modularization
🛣️ Express Router
Just like a house has many rooms, your Express app should have many route files, not one chaotic room.

🧭 1️⃣ Why Router?
⚠️ PROBLEM: When your application grows:

app.get('/users')
app.post('/users')
app.get('/posts')
app.delete('/posts/:id')
app.put('/products/:id') ...


All inside app.js…
It becomes a mess 😵
🧠 Router allows you to split routes into logical files:

routes/users.js
routes/posts.js
routes/products.j

s

Each file handles only one thing → clean, organized code.

🛠️ 2️⃣ Create a Router

👉 Step 1: Create a folder
/routes
👉 Step 2: Create users.js

const express = require("express");
const router = express.Router();
// Routes

router.get("/", (req, res) => {
   res.send("Get all users"); });
router.post("/", (req, res) => {
   res.send("Create new user"); });
module.exports = router;

👉 Step 3: Use it in app.js

const usersRoute = require("./routes/users");
app.use("/users", usersRoute)

;

🎉 Now:
GET /users → gets all users
POST /users → creates new user
🪄 Cleaner, better, scalable.

📦 3️⃣ Another Example: posts.

js

const express = require("express");
const router = express.Router();
router.get("/", (req, res) => {
   res.send("All posts"); });
router.get("/:id", (req, res) => {
    res.send("Single post with ID " + req.params.id); });
module.exports = rout

er;

In app

.js:

const postsRoute = require("./routes/posts");
app.use("/posts", postsRo

ute);

Now you have:
/posts
/posts/123
💡 This is URL prefixing.

✨ 4️⃣ Benefits of Router
🔥 1. Clean code
🔥 2. Easier debugging
🔥 3. Can handle large projects
🔥 4. Can assign middleware per router
🔥 5. Can add separate controllers later

Imagine running a restaurant:
➙Kitchen
➙Cashier
➙Delivery
➙Cleaning
Each has their own place.
Same for routes.

🎯 Very Useful Pattern
Structure:

project/
       │ app.js
       │ package.json
       │
       ├─ routes/
               │
               ├─ users.js
               │
               ├─ posts.js
               │
       └─ controllers/
               ├─ usersController.js
               ├─ postsController.js

Later we will move logic from routes → controllers.

🧰 5️⃣ NPM Packages Commonly Used with Express
Below are must-know tools.
You’ll use them in almost every real backend.

1️⃣ morgan — Logging requests
Shows every request in console:
➙GET /users 200 12ms
➙ POST /login 401 5ms
Install:
npm install morgan
Use:
const morgan = require("morgan"); app.use(morgan("dev"));

2️⃣ cors — Cross Origin Resource Sharing
Frontend and backend are different origins.
If frontend is: http://localhost:5173 Backend is: http://localhost:3000
Browser blocks requests ❌ unless we allow.
Install:
npm install cors
Use:
const cors = require("cors"); app.use(cors());

3️⃣ uuid — Unique IDs
Instead of inventing IDs:
const { v4: uuid } = require("uuid"); const user = { id: uuid(), name: "John" };
Every new resource gets a unique identifier.

4️⃣ dotenv — Environment Variables
Instead of writing this in code:
const PORT = 3000;
Put it in .env:
PORT=3000 DATABASE_URL=...
Load it:
require("dotenv").config();
Use it:
app.listen(process.env.PORT);

5️⃣ nodemon — Auto restart server ❤️
When you save file → server restarts automatically.
Install:
npm install -g nodemon
Run:
nodemon app.js
This saves hours of pain.

📚 Documentation

📘 Express Router: https://expressjs.com/en/guide/routing.html
📘 Morgan: https://www.npmjs.com/package/morgan
📘 CORS: https://www.npmjs.com/package/cors

💥Week 7 Day 7 challenges

🧩 Challenge 1: Modular Blog API

👉 Build a small blog API using Express Router.
Requirements:
Create routes folder
🗂️ posts.js
🗂️ authors.js
Each file should export a router
Main app.js must use them like:
app.use("/posts", postsRouter); app.use("/authors", authorsRouter);
Endpoints to include (just dummy responses):
✔ /posts/ → return list of posts
✔ /posts/:id → return a single post
✔ /authors/ → return list of authors
✔ /authors/:id → return author details
Add middleware:
Use morgan for request logging
Use uuid to generate post IDs

🧩 Challenge 2: Notes API with Router + File Storage

👉 Build a simple Notes API, split into modules:
📁 /routes/notes.js
📁 /data/notes.json
Endpoints:
✔ GET /notes → return all notes
✔ POST /notes → add a new note
✔ DELETE /notes/:id → delete a note
Requirements:
➙Use uuid to generate IDs
➙Use fs to read/write JSON file
➙Use express.json()` middleware
Extra:
Add CORS package so any frontend can access it

🧩 Challenge 3: Student Manager

👉 Create Student Manager with:
📁 /routes/students.js
📁 /data/students.json
Endpoints:
✔ GET /students
✔ POST /students
✔ GET /students/:id
✔ DELETE /students/:id
Use packages:
dotenv → load PORT from .env
nodemon → auto restart
.env example:
PORT=4000

🎁 Optional Bonus
Add routes with Router-level middleware:
Example:
router.use((req, res, next) => {
  console.log("Students Router  middleware running");
next(); });

When you are done:
💥share your solutions in the group,
💥invite a friend,
      and as always —

💥stay well, stay curious, and stay coding ✌️

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