meaningful.js

This node.js module will help with /valid-path-params-3/just-like-that-4/ . With meaningful, it's easy to use meaningful path names instead of IDs.

Permalink Problems: solved!

Say you'd like to use permalinks like /photos/{userId}/{photoId}.jpg but you don't want to expose ids, because they're ugly and useless to search engines. Meaningful.js can help!

npm install meaningful

var mf = require("meaningful");
mf.meaningful('Chris Hartwig / amazing user', myUserId, function (sanitizedName) {
  // sanitizedName is now "Chris-Hartwig-amazing-user" which you can use in the url
}

Now imagine your rest api :

// the url contains the sanitizedName
app.get("/photos/:user", function(req, res) {
  var sanitized = req.params.user; // sanitized == "Chris-Hartwig-amazing-user"
  md.idOfMeaningful(sanitized, function(id) {
    // now you have your id (same as myUserId
  }
}

Does it support collisions? yes, you can have many "values" with different IDs (automatic numerical suffix). So if another 'Chris Hartwig / amazing user' registers (with a different user id), his meaningful name will be Chris-Hartwig-amazing-user-1

Does it support modifications? yes, if 'Chris Hartwig / amazing user' changes to a less radical 'Chris Hartwig', the new and the old url will point to the same userId to avoid 404s.

requirements

The only dependency is for Redis...

You can customize the way you connect to Redis:

var mf = require('meaningful');

var client = md.createClient(myVerySpecialURL);
mf.getClient = function () { // let's overload getClient
    return client;
};

TODO's

• [ ] Maybe I should add a real life example
• [ ] There's no error handling at all
• [ ] More tests are needed (mocha)
• [ ] Someone should benchmark that thing