app.post is not a function express node

Question

I had all my routes in server.js but I wanted to make it modular and put into a folder called routes. I created a file called apis.js in routes folder but as I did that I get TypeError: app.post is not a function

server.js:

var express    = require('express');
var app        = express();

var bodyParser = require('body-parser');
var urlencode = bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended: true});

app.use(express.static('public'));

var apis = require('./routes/apis');
app.use('/', apis);

module.exports = app;

apis.js:

  module.exports = function(app){

  app.get('/', function(req, res) {
    res.send('OK');
  });

  app.post('/idea', function(req, res) {
  ...
  });

};

Also, having module.exports = app in server.js is important as I have tests running and I want a instance of app everytime.

What am I missing?

score 9 · Accepted Answer · answered Aug 04 '16 at 05:22

Better approach :-

server.js

var express    = require('express');
var app        = express();

var bodyParser = require('body-parser');
var urlencode = bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended: true});

app.use(express.static('public'));

var apis = require('./routes/apis');
app.use('/', apis);

module.exports = app;

apis.js :-

var router = require('express').Router();
router.post('/url',function(req,res,next){
 //your code 
})

module.exports = router

dtkaias · Answer 2 · 2016-08-04T04:30:33.120

0

You need to pass in your express app into your apis module so it can attach the routes to your app. If you want to use app.use to put your routes in a different root path, you can create another express router, and attach your routes to that, then app.use that router:

server.js:

var express    = require('express');
var app        = express();

var bodyParser = require('body-parser');
var urlencode = bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended: true});

app.use(express.static('public'));
var apis = express.Router();

require('./routes/apis')(apis);

app.use('/', apis);
module.exports = app;

edited Aug 04 '16 at 04:30

answered Aug 04 '16 at 04:06

dtkaias

781
4
14

I cant do app.use with this for / – fscore Aug 04 '16 at 04:20
You can create another router using `express.Router()` if you want to do `app.use` to mount it in a different place, updated my answer – dtkaias Aug 04 '16 at 04:31

score 0 · Answer 3 · answered Dec 20 '17 at 19:56

There's a couple different methods for connecting your app to your routes, and it looks to me like you are mixing them together, resulting in your error.

The fix already mentioned...

var router = require('express').Router();
router.post('/url',function(req,res,next){
 //your code 
})

module.exports = router

...works with the way you currently have your server.js file set up.

Another method that doesn't require you to modify your apis.js file is to require it in server.js using

require("./routes/apis.js")(app);

instead of

var apis = require('./routes/apis');
app.use('/', apis);

This ensures that the variable app is passed into the function in apis.js

The first version is recommended, but hopefully this explains why you are getting confused between the two, i.e. because the second is an alternate version.

See Differences between express.Router and app.get? for more information on why the router version is recommended.

app.post is not a function express node

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