Getting the "matched" route without actual routing?

[BabakMN]

Is it possible to match for a route or get the matched route before doing the actual routing?

The use case would be for things like authentication middleware.

So you could have a top middleware determining which route is going to be routed to, then you have one below which could allow/deny. Then you actually route.

This way individual routes wouldn't have to worry about authentication (like forgetting to protect them with a middleware at the time of creation).

Without "match without routing" you'd have to string match the URL manually.

[tunnckoCore]

Good question. Probably not possible currently. I'm tired this last days, so I can think for something soon, but I'm open for ideas and PRs too.

[BabakMN]

Thanks for your response. I just had a quick look at the middleware source. I think essentially we would have to break the middleware into two components, one to only match, one to only route based on what was matched or not mached before.

Roughly,

const { match, route } = router.middleware();

// Set route match information on context
app.use(match);

// This middleware now can enjoy
// the benefits of knowing which route has matched
app.use(authentication); 

// Use route match information from context
app.use(route);

[tunnckoCore]

Mmm yea, that's why i'm thinking to move to dush + dush-router, which router does almost the same thing and has this feature for manual navigate.

Dush router does not use path-match or path-to-regexp it is very simple, small and naive, but it can be upgraded to use path-match very simply