Node js timestamp - need two lines explained PLEASE

#1

Can someone tell me exactly what the last two lines of the sample code below are doing?

var express = require('express')
var app = express();
var http = require('http').Server(app);
var port = process.env.PORT || 8080;
var moment = require('moment');
app.get('/:date', function (req, res) {
  var queryDate = new Date(req.params.date);
#2 
app.get('/:date', function (req, res) {
var queryDate = new Date(req.params.date);

app.get('/') gets a route. So app.get('/') would get localhost:3000 while app.get('/api') would get localhost:3000/api. The :date is a parameter. So you are getting this route: localhost:3000/january5th, localhost:3000/bruh, localhost:3000/4thofjuly. The part after the / is considered a request parameter with the name date. You can access this with req.params.date. In the above case, req.params.date would be : “january5th”, “bruh”, “4thofjuly”. Obviously it is up to you to make sure it is a valid date before doing new Date(req.params.date)

You can read more about routing and parameters here:
http://expressjs.com/en/guide/routing.html

3 Likes
#3

That was the link I was searching for :slight_smile:

1 Like
#4

I see. I could actually name that anything I want and have it still work when I feed the service a date.

Using “https://firstappever-olddognewtrix123.c9users.io/December%2015,%202015” if I use the following code

app.get('/:samIam', function (req, res) {
  var queryDate = new Date(req.params.samIam);

I get “Tue Dec 15 2015 00:00:00 GMT+0000 (UTC)”

But if there is a mismatch, such as

app.get('/:samIam', function (req, res) {
  var queryDate = new Date(req.params.date);

stuff stops working and the output is “Invalid Date”

#5