How to get a URL parameter in Express?

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🔗 How to get a URL parameter in Express?

👨‍💻 Common Issues and Easy Solutions

Are you having trouble getting the value of a URL parameter in Express? We're here to help you out! In this guide, we'll walk you through a specific problem and provide simple solutions to retrieve URL parameters in Express. Let's dive right in! 💪

Here's the problem scenario:

<p>I am facing an issue on getting the value of <code>tagid</code> from my URL: <code>localhost:8888/p?tagid=1234</code>.</p>

<p>Help me out to correct my controller code. I am not able to get the <code>tagid</code> value.</p>

📁 Step 1: Update the Controller Code

In your Controller/index.js file, make the following changes:

function controller(params) {
  var app = params.app;

  app.get('/p', function(request, response) {
    var tagId = request.query.tagid;
    
    response.writeHead(200);
    response.end('You are looking for tagId: ' + tagId);
  });
}

module.exports = controller;

📁 Step 2: Resolve Route Conflict

To avoid route conflicts, update your app.js file. Remove the duplicate app.use(app.router) line:

// all environments
app.configure(function() {
  app.set('port', process.env.PORT || 8888);
  app.use(express.json());
  app.use(express.urlencoded());
  app.use(express.methodOverride());
  app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));
  app.set('view engine', 'jade');
  app.set('views', __dirname + '/views');
  
  // Remove this line 👇
  // app.use(app.router);
  
  app.get('/', function(req, res) {
    res.render('index');
  });
});

📁 Step 3: Additional improvements

In your routes/index.js file, there's no need to require './controllers' as it is not used. You can remove that line:

require('./controllers');
/*
 * GET home page.
 */

exports.index = function(req, res) {
  res.render('index', {
    title: 'Express'
  });
};

📌 Conclusion and Call-to-Action

And that's it! 🎉 You've successfully resolved the issue of retrieving a URL parameter in Express. By updating the controller code and resolving route conflicts, you'll now be able to get the value of the tagid parameter in your URL. Happy coding! 😃

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🔍 Tags: Express, URL parameters, troubleshooting, code example, web development