Iron.Router

A router that works on the server and the browser, designed specifically for Meteor

The Iron.Router Guide

Detailed explanations of router features can be found in the Guide.

Installation

meteor add iron:router

Examples

There are several examples in the examples folder.

Quick Start

Create some routes in a client/server JavaScript file:

Router.route('/', function () {
  this.render('MyTemplate');
});

Router.route('/items', function () {
  this.render('Items');
});

Router.route('/items/:_id', function () {
  var item = Items.findOne({_id: this.params._id});
  this.render('ShowItem', {data: item});
});

Router.route('/files/:filename', function () {
  this.response.end('hi from the server\n');
}, {where: 'server'});

Router.route('/restful', {where: 'server'})
  .get(function () {
    this.response.end('get request\n');
  })
  .post(function () {
    this.response.end('post request\n');
  });

Migrating from 0.9.4

Iron Router should be reasonably backwards compatible, but there are a few required changes that you need to know about:

Hooks

onRun and onBeforeAction hooks now require you to call this.next(), and no longer take a pause() argument. So the default behaviour is reversed. For example, if you had:

Router.onBeforeAction(function(pause) {
  if (! Meteor.userId()) {
    this.render('login');
    pause();
  }
});

You’ll need to update it to

Router.onBeforeAction(function() {
  if (! Meteor.userId()) {
    this.render('login');
  } else {
    this.next();
  }
});

This is to fit better with existing route middleware (e.g. connect) APIs.

Controller Methods

controller.setLayout() is now controller.layout(). Usually called as this.layout("fooTemplate") inside a route action.

Query Parameters

Query parameters now get their own object on this.params. To access the query object you can use this.params.query.

Loading Hook

The loading hook now runs automatically on the client side if your route has a waitOn. As previously, you can set a global or per-route loadingTemplate.

If you want to setup subscriptions but not have an automatic loading hook, you can use the new subscriptions option, which still affects .ready()-ness, but doesn’t force the loading hook.

Hook and option inheritance

All hooks and options are now fully inherited from parent controllers and the router itself as you might expect. The order of precendence is now route; controller; parent controller; router.

Route names

A route’s name is now accessible at route.getName() (previously it was route.name). In particular, you’ll need to write Router.current().route.getName().

Routes on client and server

It’s not strictly required, but moving forward, Iron Router expects all routes to be declared on both client and server. This means that the client can route to the server and visa-versa.

Catchall routes

Iron Router now uses path-to-regexp, which means the syntax for catchall routes has changed a little – it’s now '/(.*)'.

Template Lookup

If you don’t explicitly set a template option on your route, and you don’t
explicity render a template name, the router will try to automatically render a
template based on the name of the route. By default the router will look for the
class case name of the template.

For example, if you have a route defined like this:

Router.route('/items/:_id', {name: 'items.show'});

The router will by default look for a template named ItemsShow with capital
letters for each word and punctuation removed. If you would like to customize
this behavior you can set your own converter function. For example, let’s say
you don’t want any conversion. You can set the converter function like this:

Router.setTemplateNameConverter(function (str) { return str; });

Contributing

Contributors are very welcome. There are many things you can help with,
including finding and fixing bugs, creating examples for the examples folder,
contributing to improved design or adding features. Some guidelines below:

• Questions: Please post to Stack Overflow and tag with iron-router : http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/iron-router.

• New Features: If you’d like to work on a feature,
  start by creating a ‘Feature Design: Title’ issue. This will let people bat it
  around a bit before you send a full blown pull request. Also, you can create
  an issue to discuss a design even if you won’t be working on it.

• Bugs: If you think you found a bug, please create a “reproduction.” This is a small project that demonstrates the problem as concisely as possible. The project should be cloneable from Github. Any bug reports without a reproduction that don’t have an obvious solution will be marked as “awaiting-reproduction” and closed after one week. Want more information on creating reproductions? Watch this video: https://www.eventedmind.com/feed/github-issues-and-reproductions.

Working Locally

This is useful if you’re contributing code to iron-router.

1. Set up a local packages folder
2. Add the PACKAGE_DIRS environment variable to your .bashrc file
   - Example: export PACKAGE_DIRS="/Users/cmather/code/packages"
   - Screencast: https://www.eventedmind.com/posts/meteor-versioning-and-packages
3. Clone the repository into your local packages directory
4. Add iron-router just like any other meteor core package like this: meteor add iron:router

> git clone https://github.com/EventedMind/iron-router.git /Users/cmather/code/packages/iron:router
> cd my-project
> meteor add iron:router

License

MIT