Removing routes at runtime

[akyoto]

First off, let me say that I'm an Express beginner and so far I'm very impressed with what it can do.
I set up my node.js application to watch file changes and those file changes actually can incur the need to alter routes. Therefore I searched the routing documentation and it seems there is no official, documented way to do it.

I quickly searched if this issue already existed on GitHub but I couldn't find it via "remove" or "remove routes".

A few minutes of Google-fu later it seems there are some ways to do it:
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/15027514/node-js-remove-route-while-server-is-running
http://stackoverflow.com/questions/10378690/remove-route-mappings-in-nodejs-express

However those don't seem to be well documented and I don't see why Express shouldn't have an officially documented function à la "app.remove()" or a similar mechanism to remove routes.

If there is something I missed please let me know.

[dougwilson]

Correct, there is no official way because we cannot optimize things if the stack can be mutable at runtime. The way we recommend you do it is to simply swap a router at runtime:

var express = require('express')

var app = express()
var router = undefined

// this should be the only thing on your app
app.use(function (req, res, next) {
  // this needs to be a function to hook on whatever the current router is
  router(req, res, next)
})

function defineStuff() {
  router = express.Router()

  // define everything on _router_, not _app_
  router.get('/', ...)
}

// now do you watch and when something changes
// call defineStuff()

[akyoto]

Wow, now that is what I call quick support!

I see, so performance is the reason for the lack of this method.
Thank you, I will try the method you suggested.

[dougwilson]

Correct :) Because Node.js is async, when you start to alter the routes, there are likely various requests in various states within the stack. Requests may re-enter the stack, and since this is done by index, removing a route will cause strange behavior for in-flight requests. It's the same reason we limit to only adding new routes at the end of the stack :)

I'm here if you still have questions, so feel free to reply back here if you need :) As for quick, it's really timing as I just happen to be on mucking with all the Express repos right now :D