Caleb Madrigal

Programming, Hacking, Math, and Art

  

Sessions in Node.js and Express.js

In the process of trying to explain to a friend how sessions work, I decided to write a barebones example to demonstrate how to do sessions in Node.js with Express.js.

Here's a live demo: http://expressjs-session-example.herokuapp.com/

And Here's what it looks like:

Before you enter your name:

After you enter your name:

And here is the code:

var express = require('express');
var cookieParser = require('cookie-parser');
var bodyParser = require('body-parser');
var session = require('cookie-session');

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// MIDDLEWARE

var app = express();

// Needed to handle JSON posts
app.use(bodyParser.json());

// Cookie parsing needed for sessions
app.use(cookieParser('notsosecretkey'));

// Session framework
app.use(session({secret: 'notsosecretkey123'}));

// Consider all URLs under /public/ as static files, and return them raw.
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));

/////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// HANDLERS

function getName(req, res) {
  if (req.session.name) {
    return res.json({ name: req.session.name });
  }
  else {
    return res.json({ name: '' });
  }
}

function setName(req, res) {
  if(!req.body.hasOwnProperty('name')) {
    res.statusCode = 400;
    return res.json({ error: 'Invalid message' });
  }
  else {
    req.session.name = req.body.name;
    return res.json({ name: req.body.name });
  }
}

function logout(req, res) {
  req.session = null;
  return res.json({});
}

///////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// ROUTES

app.get('/name', getName);
app.post('/name', setName);
app.get('/logout', logout);

////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////////// SERVER LISTEN
var port = process.env.PORT || 3000;
app.listen(port, function () { console.log("Listening on port " + port); });

Github repo: https://github.com/calebmadrigal/expressjs-session-example

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