DEV Community

Discussion on: Bulletproof node.js project architecture 🛡️

 
victorzamfir profile image
Victor Zamfir

Not really.

You can render the response however you like (using res.json or res.render etc) or you can just return something anything that will be JSON encoded and rendered as is.

Example:

app.get(
  '/',
  wrapHandler(async (req, res) => {
    const result = await ...
    res.json(result);
  }),
);

which is the same thing as:

app.get(
  '/',
  wrapHandler(async (req, res) => {
    const result = await ...
    return result
  }),
);

But in other cases you might want to do something like this:

app.get(
  '/',
  wrapHandler(async (req, res) => {
    const result = await ...
    res.render('template', result)
  }),
);

All of these work as expected.

Thread Thread
 
dimpiax profile image
Dmytro Pylypenko • Edited

You're right!

And this will make an error by negligence.

...
wrapHandler(async (req, res) => {
  const result = await ...
  res.json(result)

  return result
})
...
Thread Thread
 
victorzamfir profile image
Victor Zamfir • Edited

Whoever writes code like that is negligent :)

It's like saying that express.js is too permissive for letting you write code like this:

...
(req, res) => {
  const result = await ...
  res.json(result);
  res.json(someOtherThing);
  res.render('someView');
}
...

I think everyone knows that it's a bad practice to do other things (including returning something) after sending the response in express.js (there are very special cases though, but they don't include the one you shared).

Thread Thread
 
dimpiax profile image
Dmytro Pylypenko

Yes, my idea to hide real response in a route is not a good idea.
Cause you have mixed flow.
In one case, you can put return in other res.SOMETHING, but not both.
It makes harder to maintain and avoid potential fails in a development team.

Thread Thread
 
victorzamfir profile image
Victor Zamfir

Yep, I see your point and you're right in a way.

I only use express.js to build APIs (I never render a template or something). So it's more like a convention (shortcut) as returing JSONs is what I do in 90% of the cases.

Thread Thread
 
dimpiax profile image
Dmytro Pylypenko

Yep, this is why I started from this message: "This code is probably for the specific use case, but looks not good."
For example, if you return await ... with undefined you will go in hang situation.