"Each layer must have a route and a handle function" -- what is the "route" function?

[jameshfisher]

I'm confused as to what the "route" function is in a layer. I don't see it documented; what is its signature and what is it meant to do?

(Also, is the documentation at http://extjs.github.com/Connect/ tested? I see the following in the "Middleware" section:

module.exports = connect.createServer(
    connect.logger(),
    connect.static(__dirname + '/public)
);

which seems to have an invalid reference (static instead of staticProvider) and an unclosed string literal.)

[jameshfisher]

All I see at connect/index.js (where the error originates) is

/**

• Stack the given middleware handle to the given route.
  *
• @param {String} route
• @param {Function} handle
• @return {Server}
• @api public
  */

Ok, so "route" is a string, not a function. (That ambiguity in the error message should be eliminated.) But anyway, what does this mean? "Route" as in the "router" middleware? I can't see how that has anything to do with it, and I can't think of another relevant type of "route" this could be.

[tj]

shit, year static() should be staticProvider(). I am not sure that "route" is the proper word to describe it, personally I would call it a "mount path" or something, but basically it allows you to "mount" say the static middleware to a specific base path, for example server.use("/public", connect.staticProvider())

[jameshfisher]

... ok. I don't think I understand. Let's take the examples at http://howtonode.org/connect-it . Neither the "from scratch" app, nor the "robust using built-in" app, work: when I run connect server.js, I get

/home/lm/.node_libraries/connect/index.js:146
        throw new Error("Each layer must have a route and a handle function");

I get exactly the same if I set exports.route in serve-js.js and log-it.js, like so:

exports.route = __dirname;

So to keep this simple, how should the tutorial at the above URL be changed for it to now work?

[tj]

that tutorial is pretty old now.. you can basically use the example above, with staticProvider instead of "static" (which I will fix), and run connect

[creationix]

Perhaps I should update the article. Updating...

[frank06]

Many examples with latest connect and express don't work. "Each layer must have a route and a handle function" in all of them. Bug?

[tj]

its because I made a change to allow server.use(fn) instead of server.use('/', fn) my examples use the former, which unfortunately will blow up right now, I should switch them until a new connect is released

[frank06]

if it's for me it's ok... given that you can pass those into express.createServer() without a path ... so no biggie. thanks

[tj]

my and guillermo had a big talk about dependencies. its a stupid issue with node stuff right now. git IS a package manager essentially, we talked about vendorizing connect in express, but it leads to other problems so I dont have a good answer at this moment but the preferred install method would probably be $ curl http://expressjs.com/install.sh | sh