How to get a matched route to fallthrought to the next middleware?

[RonaldTreur]

When I do something like:

rest.get('/person/:id', function(req, res, next) {
    const toUrl = req.url.replace(rest.context, rest.options.forward);
    req.url = toUrl;
    next();
});

The code is not really that important, it's all about the next-call at the end.

I expect the next (connect) middleware to be invoked, but that never happens. I'm guessing connect-rest does something to block this functionality by wrapping connect's next-callback in their own.

How would I get connect-rest to match and then fall through to the next layer of middleware?

[imrefazekas]

Dear Ronald,

As I tried to describe here: https://github.com/imrefazekas/connect-rest#rest-functions
connect-rest is not a "middleware-only" solution. How it works:
matches the call against all paths defined by the developer and if nothing matches that next function will be called automatically. In case of matching, your matching service-like function or functions will be called.

You can have multiple service functions to the same path or a wide range of options (please check documentation for details) to orchestrate your business logic as you wish. But as you observed, connect-rest does not follow the path of "middlewares", it serves a different purpose and aim.

I'm sure, you find your voice with connect-rest but if not, lots of REST solutions are built to be a "middleware" only.

[RonaldTreur]

I know it currently doesn't work that way, but I'm not sure why you would not want to make it pure middleware? I'm also not sure what you mean by "middleware-only". It is connect middleware right? It says so everywhere in the readme.

I actually made a few changes to your code that makes everything work correctly. It might break some other functionality I am not aware of however, I'm not 100% sure.
If you want I can make a PR and you can take a look.

[imrefazekas]

Simple aim. To free the business logic from the signature of underlaying layers.
If you combine connect-rest with other libraries, you can write your business logic functions once and can use them in a REST or Websocket or message bus calls without any changes or wrapping and without carrying about the signatures of different libraries. I write many enterprise apps servicing through different interfaces...
That is the reason why I wrote connect-rest, otherwise it would be just another feature-full REST library.
I believe express and restify are doing a great job on that road you are seeking.

Feel free to fork connect-rest if you want to mutate it down to connect-level.