ExpressJS easily serve static files

Question

I have a NodeJS package, staticize, which takes an object of HTTP routes -> file locations, then serves them dynamically on each request.

Could I get some feedback on the latest rewrite of the main file? (Also available on GitHub here)

var fs = require('fs');
var mime = require('mime');

module.exports = function(app, routes) {
    // loop through routes
    for (var index in routes) {
        // closure: route is the HTTP request route, path is the file path
        (function (route, path) {
            app.get(route, function(req, res) {
                // create a readable stream
                var stream = fs.createReadStream(path, {encoding: 'utf8'});

                stream
                    .once('error', function() {
                        res.status(500).end('Server error.');
                        console.error('ERROR (staticize): Could not open readable stream to ' + path);
                    })
                    .once('readable', function() {
                        // create headers
                        var headers = {
                            'Content-Type': mime.lookup(path)
                        };

                        // write head then pipe response
                        res.writeHead(200, headers);
                        stream.pipe(res);
                    });
            });
        })(index, routes[index]);
    }
};

It is called simply like this:

staticize(app, {
    '/foo': '../test/foo/bar.txt',
    '/foo/more': '../test/foo-extra/bar.txt'
});

I've tried to perfect it as much as possible, but I may have overlooked some things.

Answer 1

It looks pretty good and definitely works, but I would approach this a little bit differently and try to avoid that closure - it's a little bit difficult to read and it's also unnecessary. You can use Object.keys if you want to be able to use an object for your routes parameter.

module.exports = function(app, routes) {
    // loop through routes
    var len = routes.length,
        keys = Object.keys(routes),
        // Define path and stream outside of the loop, at the top
        // of the module as private vars and reuse (they are
        // hoisted by JavaScript anyway.
        url,
        path,
        stream;

  // Use a while loop here because it doesn't matter which
  // order you setup these routes in. This is the least verbose.
  while(len--){
    url = keys[len];
    app.get(url, function(req, res) {
        path = routes[url];
        // create a readable stream
        stream = fs.createReadStream(path, {encoding: 'utf8'});

        stream
        .once('error', function() {
            res.status(500).end('Server error.');
            console.error('ERROR (staticize): Could not open readable stream to ' + path);
        })
        .once('readable', function() {
            // create headers
            var headers = {
                'Content-Type': mime.lookup(path)
            };

            // write head then pipe response
            res.writeHead(200, headers);
            stream.pipe(res);
        });
    });  
  }
};

Personally, I would use an array with named properties instead of an Object for my routes, but key/value is OK. Something like this would allow you to just do a routes.forEach() and have direct access without having to use Object.keys:

staticize(app, [
    {
        url: '/foo',
        path: '../test/foo/bar.txt'
    }, {
        url: '/foo/more',
        path: '../test/foo-extra/bar.txt'
    }
]);

module.exports = function(app, routes) {
  // Use a forEach here instead of a loop
  routes.forEach(function(route){
    app.get(route.url, function(req, res) {
        // Save the route since we use it three times in here
        var path = route.path;

        // create a readable stream
        var stream = fs.createReadStream(path, {encoding: 'utf8'});

        stream
        .once('error', function() {
            res.status(500).end('Server error.');
            console.error('ERROR (staticize): Could not open readable stream to ' + path);
        })
        .once('readable', function() {
            // create headers
            var headers = {
                'Content-Type': mime.lookup(path)
            };

            // write head then pipe response
            res.writeHead(200, headers);
            stream.pipe(res);
        });
    });  
  });
};