Question about Node Express

[robbyweeds]

Ive been waiting to learn back end things for so long. This is by far my favorite chapter yet. Its also super hard for me even though i find it interesting.

I am wondering what the ‘colon’ stands for in a url.

like http://freecodecamp/:word/index.html

what does the colon do before word?

for some reason i keep thinking it means that anything can be substituted after the colon but before the next forward slash.

Or maybe that’s just in the express method paths?

Im just having a hard time researching because i dont even know what the terms are for those parts of the url.

[Marmiz]

Yep, it’s called route parameter. It’s a way to capture a value in the URL position

Route path: http://freecodecamp/:word/index.html
Request URL: http://freecodecamp/awesome/index.html
req.params: { "word": "awesome" }

Hope this helps

[robbyweeds]

thank you so much. i couldnt figure out if it was something permanent or used for a value.

appreciate the help