Is it possible to "unuse" middleware?

[Pete]

Specifically I want to mount static content only temporarily and then unmount it.

So to mount it i do something like this:

    var id = uuid.v1();

    app.use('/local/' + id, express.static('./local'));

But later when I know longer need to serve that static content, I would like to do something like:

    app.unuse('/local/' + id);

Or would this work?:

    app.use('/local/' + id);

thanks,

Pete

[Justin Russell]

You could probably hack together some sort of "unuse" functionality but something like this should work if you're hard up:

app.use('local'/ + id);

app.use(function(req, res, next) {

  if(okToServeLocalStuff(app)) {

    next();

  } else {

    refuseToServeLocalStuff(res);

  }

});

app.use(express.static('./local'));

----------------------------------------------------------------

jrussell.me

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[Kamil Leszczuk]

Since there is no reply to your question, I'd note two possibilities:

1. Use additional middleware which will enable/disable your static route without actually deleting it. This could look like this:

// This middleware will enable/disable static route as needed

var StaticToggle = function (path) {

    var _staticEnabled = true;

    var _path = path || "/static";

    

    return {

        middleware: function (req, res, next) {

            console.log(req.originalUrl);

            if (req.originalUrl.indexOf(_path) === 0 && !_staticEnabled) {

                res.send(404);

            } else {

                next();

            }

        },

        toggle: function () {

            console.log('toggle');

            _staticEnabled = !_staticEnabled;

        }

    }

};

var toggle = new StaticToggle('/pub');

// Add toggle middleware before static middleware

app.use(toggle.middleware);

app.use(express.static('static')); 

// Disable static route after 5 sec

setTimeout(toggle.toggle.bind(toggle), 5000);

Obviously, this approach adds some processing overhead for every request. This assumes static content is under '/pub' relative path.

2. Delete route programatically. I believe this is not supported by express (or connect) and could break something:

setTimeout(function deleteStaticRoute() {

    for (var s = 0, l = app.stack.length; s < l; s++) {

        if (app.stack[s].handle && app.stack[s].handle.name === 'staticMiddleware') {

            console.log('removed static route');

            app.stack.splice(s, 1);

            break;

        }

    }

}, 5000);

This assumes that static route handler is called 'staticMiddleware', which is true in connect ~2.8.4).

Hope you find the solution,

Kamil

[Patrick Steele-Idem]

Hi Pete,

For hot-reloading during development I am using the "express-resetter" module to remove middleware and routes so that new middleware and routes can be registered without restarting the entire application. Even if you don't use the module directly, you can look at the code to see how Express/Connect maintains middleware and routes internally. Here's the module on Github:

https://github.com/patrick-steele-idem/express-resetter

I hope that helps.

--Patrick