How can I escape '?' character when using node.js express HTTP get, in order to mock http requests?

Question

How can I escape '?' character when using node.js express HTTP get, in order to mock http requests?

I am tying to mock url's of the following form using the express module of node.js:

http://localhost:3002/example.domain.to.mock/features/location?lat=100.1234&lon=99.9876

But I can't seem to escape the question mark character when using a regex

var express = require('express');
var app = module.exports = express.createServer();

app.get('/example.domain.to.mock/features/location\?lat=*', function(req, res) {
    sendMockResponseFromFile("mock_location.txt", res);
});

The above code does not work for url's with a question mark in them. I am able to mock requests with an ampersand in them, just not question marks. I have also tried '\\?' and '?' with no luck.

regex
node.js
express

Answer 1

Express's router operates on only the path portion of the URL, not the entire URL, so routes can't match on the content of the query string. Your workaround is reasonable.

Answer 2

I found a workaround for my purposes: I simply accept all requests and then perform a simple regex test to send the appropriate mock file i need:

app.get('/example.domain.to.mock/features/location', function(req, res) {
  var originalURL = req.originalUrl;
  var regexPatternForFilteredSearch = new RegExp(".*myRequiredRegex.*");

  if (regexPatternForFilteredSearch.test(originalURL)) {
      sendMockResponseFromFile("mock_location.txt", res);
  } else {
      sendMockResponseFromFile("second_mock_location.txt", res);
  }
});

I still am curious as to why I couldn't achieve using a regex inside the app.get() command