router.route() doesnt want to work at all - express

Question

I am trying to run router.route() with the following code
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
const router = express.Router();
router.route('/test').get(function (req, res, next) {
res.send('You have reached localhost:9000/test');
next();
});
app.listen(9000, () => {
console.log('Running on port 9000');
});
But it doesn't seem like anything is happening at all. Regardless of what I do, localhost:9000/test will not return anything Cannot GET /test. I don't understand what I'm doing wrong. Thanks in advance

Answer 1

You have to hook the router into your app with app.use():
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
const router = express.Router();
router.get('/test', function (req, res, next) {
res.send('You have reached localhost:9000/test');
});
app.use(router); // <=== add this
app.listen(9000, () => {
console.log('Running on port 9000');
});
Your original code creates a router object, but that router object is not hooked up to any web server yet. Using app.use(), you can hook it up to your web server so that it actually gets a chance to see the incoming requests.
Also, do not call next() after you call res.send(). Pick one of the other. Once you send a response, you do not want to continue routing to other routes because that will often try to then send another response, but you can only send one response to a given incoming http request.

Answer 2

You can simply use the Router().get(...) function instead.
The <Router>.get('/path', function() {...}); function will listen for incoming traffic to the path /path and then fire the callback function with the parameters request, response and next.
Example:
router.get('/test', function (req, res) {
res.send('You have reached localhost:9000/test');
});
Full example:
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
const router = express.Router();
router.get('/test', function (req, res) {
res.send('You have reached localhost:9000/test');
});
app.listen(9000, () => {
console.log('Running on port 9000');
});
Note: Using the next() function after sending a response to an incoming HTTP request will result in an error.