Fancy Paths

(DRAFT)

Fancy Paths is a url path parser written for Go web apps.

The path simply retreives any part of a http.Request url path based on predefined key values. Keys are defined by a sample url pattern.

The example pattern below defines the keys "category" and "slug" used to retrieve the corresponding values in the http.Request url path:

// import paths "github.com/vinm0/fancypaths"
.
.
.
// GET: "https://example.com/blog/poetry/first-post"
// var req *http.Request

pattern := "/*/category/slug"
p := paths.New(req, pattern)

p.Var("category") == "poetry" // true
p.Var("slug") == "first-post" // true
p.Var("*") == ""              // true, astrisks are ignored

Contents

1. Installation
2. Usage
   1. Initialize
   2. Path Values
   3. Query Values
   4. Fragment Value
3. Why not github.com/gorilla/mux?

Installation

go get github.com/vinm0/fancypaths

import "github.com/vinm0/fancypaths"

If you're not feeling very fancy, but you'd still want the paths, I guess you can import an alias (ugh).

import paths "github.com/vinm0/fancypaths"

Usage

1. Initialize

// import paths "github.com/vinm0/fancypaths"
.
.
.
// GET: "https://example.com/blog/poetry/first-post"
// var req *http.Request

pattern := "/*/category/slug"
p := paths.New(req, pattern)

2. Path Values

// GET: "https://example.com/blog/poetry/first-post/"
// var req *http.Request

pattern := "/*/category/slug/id"
p := paths.New(req, pattern)

p.Var("category") == "poetry" // true
p.Var("slug") == "first-post" // true
p.Var("id") == ""             // true, not provided in http.Request
p.Var("*") == ""              // true, astrisks are ignored

3. Query Values

// "https://example.com/edit/article/?item=42"

p := paths.New(req, "/")

p.Query("item") == "42" // true

4. Fragment Value

// "https://example.com/blog/article/#42"

p := New(req, "/")

p.Frag == "42"  // true

Why Not Mux?

Gorilla Mux is great when you want a specific handler to catch a specific pattern.

For instance, consider the following path pattern.

gMux.HandleFunc("/edit/{category}/{id:[0-9]+}", specificHandler)

Mux will only pass requests to the handler that match the pattern (such as, "/edit/article/42"). But it will not match slightly different patterns (such as, "/edit/article/some-slug" or "/edit/profile"). In which case, you might need more highly specific routes.

Perhaps you don't want to list every possible route pattern. Perhaps, you would prefer one handler for the route "/edit/" to make decisions based on the rest of the requested path.

Solution:

Define the variables within the handler instead of the router.

Keep your path variables while watching for a more general pattern.

With Fancy Paths, could match the pattern "/edit/" and let the handler decide what to do with the rest of the request path.