Let's say my sample URL is
and I say I have the following route
app.get('/one/two', function (req, res) {
var url = req.url;
}
The value of url will be /one/two.
How do I get the full URL in Express?
For example, in the case above, I would like to receive http://example.com/one/two.
The protocol is available as req.protocol. docs here
http unless you see that req.get('X-Forwarded-Protocol') is set and has the value https, in which case you know that's your protocolThe host comes from req.get('host') as Gopal has indicated
Hopefully you don't need a non-standard port in your URLs, but if you did need to know it you'd have it in your application state because it's whatever you passed to app.listen at server startup time. However, in the case of local development on a non-standard port, Chrome seems to include the port in the host header so req.get('host') returns localhost:3000, for example. So at least for the cases of a production site on a standard port and browsing directly to your express app (without reverse proxy), the host header seems to do the right thing regarding the port in the URL.
The path comes from req.originalUrl (thanks @pgrassant). Note this DOES include the query string. docs here on req.url and req.originalUrl. Depending on what you intend to do with the URL, originalUrl may or may not be the correct value as compared to req.url.
Combine those all together to reconstruct the absolute URL.
var fullUrl = req.protocol + '://' + req.get('host') + req.originalUrl;
Instead of concatenating the things together on your own, you could instead use the node.js API for URLs and pass URL.format() the informations from express.
Example:
var url = require('url');
function fullUrl(req) {
return url.format({
protocol: req.protocol,
host: req.get('host'),
pathname: req.originalUrl
});
}
I found it a bit of a PITA to get the requested url. I can't believe there's not an easier way in express. Should just be req.requested_url
But here's how I set it:
var port = req.app.settings.port || cfg.port;
res.locals.requested_url = req.protocol + '://' + req.host + ( port == 80 || port == 443 ? '' : ':'+port ) + req.path;
Using url.format:
var url = require('url');
This support all protocols and include port number. If you don't have a query string in your originalUrl you can use this cleaner solution:
var requrl = url.format({
protocol: req.protocol,
host: req.get('host'),
pathname: req.originalUrl,
});
If you have a query string:
var urlobj = url.parse(req.originalUrl);
urlobj.protocol = req.protocol;
urlobj.host = req.get('host');
var requrl = url.format(urlobj);
make req.host/req.hostname effective must have two condition when Express behind proxies:
app.set('trust proxy', 'loopback'); in app.jsX-Forwarded-Host header must specified by you own in webserver. eg. apache, nginxnginx:
server {
listen myhost:80;
server_name myhost;
location / {
root /path/to/myapp/public;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Host $host:$server_port;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-Server $host;
proxy_set_header X-Forwarded-For $proxy_add_x_forwarded_for;
proxy_pass http://myapp:8080;
}
}
apache:
<VirtualHost myhost:80>
ServerName myhost
DocumentRoot /path/to/myapp/public
ProxyPass / http://myapp:8080/
ProxyPassReverse / http://myapp:8080/
</VirtualHost>
I would suggest using originalUrl instead of URL:
var url = req.protocol + '://' + req.get('host') + req.originalUrl;
See the description of originalUrl here: http://expressjs.com/api.html#req.originalUrl
In our system, we do something like this, so originalUrl is important to us:
foo = express();
express().use('/foo', foo);
foo.use(require('/foo/blah_controller'));
blah_controller looks like this:
controller = express();
module.exports = controller;
controller.get('/bar/:barparam', function(req, res) { /* handler code */ });
So our URLs have the format:
www.example.com/foo/bar/:barparam
Hence, we need req.originalUrl in the bar controller get handler.
You can use this function in the route like this
app.get('/one/two', function (req, res) {
const url = getFullUrl(req);
}
/**
* Gets the self full URL from the request
*
* @param {object} req Request
* @returns {string} URL
*/
const getFullUrl = (req) => `${req.protocol}://${req.headers.host}${req.originalUrl}`;
req.protocol will give you http or https,
req.headers.host will give you the full host name like www.google.com,
req.originalUrl will give the rest pathName(in your case /one/two)
I use the node package 'url' (npm install url)
What it does is when you call
url.parse(req.url, true, true)
it will give you the possibility to retrieve all or parts of the url. More info here: https://github.com/defunctzombie/node-url
I used it in the following way to get whatever comes after the / in http://www.example.com/ to use as a variable and pull up a particular profile (kind of like facebook: http://www.facebook.com/username)
var url = require('url');
var urlParts = url.parse(req.url, true, true);
var pathname = urlParts.pathname;
var username = pathname.slice(1);
Though for this to work, you have to create your route this way in your server.js file:
self.routes['/:username'] = require('./routes/users');
And set your route file this way:
router.get('/:username', function(req, res) {
//here comes the url parsing code
}
Thank you all for this information. This is incredibly annoying.
Add this to your code and you'll never have to think about it again:
var app = express();
app.all("*", function (req, res, next) { // runs on ALL requests
req.fullUrl = req.protocol + '://' + req.get('host') + req.originalUrl
next()
})
You can do or set other things there as well, such as log to console.
In 2021
The above answers are working fine but not preferred by the Documentation because url.parse is now legacy so I suggest you to use new URL() function if you want to get more control on url.
You can get Full URL from the below code.
`${req.protocol}://${req.get('host')}${req.originalUrl}`
Example URL: http://localhost:5000/a/b/c?d=true&e=true#f=false
Fixed Properties ( you will get the same results in all routes )
req.protocol: http
req.hostname: localhost
req.get('Host'): localhost:5000
req.originalUrl: /a/b/c?d=true&e=true
req.query: { d: 'true', e: 'true' }
Not Fixed Properties ( will change in every route because it controlled by express itself )
Route: /
req.baseUrl: <blank>
req.url: /a/b/c?d=true&e=true
req.path: /a/b/c
Route /a
req.baseUrl: /a
req.url: /b/c?d=true&e=true
req.path: /b/c
Documentation: http://expressjs.com/en/api.html#req.baseUrl
In the URL function, you will get the same results in every route so properties are always fixed.
Properties
const url = new URL(`${req.protocol}://${req.get('host')}${req.originalUrl}`);
console.log(url)
You will get the results like the below. I changed the order of the properties as per the image so it can match the image flow.
URL {
href: 'http://localhost:5000/a/b/c?d=true&e=true',
protocol: 'http:',
username: '',
password: '',
hostname: 'localhost',
port: '5000',
host: 'localhost:5000',
origin: 'http://localhost:5000',
pathname: '/a/b/c',
search: '?d=true&e=true',
searchParams: URLSearchParams { 'd' => 'true', 'e' => 'true' },
hash: ''
}
Note: Hash can not send to the server because it treats as Fragment in the server but you will get that in the client-side means browser.
Documentation: https://nodejs.org/api/url.html#url_new_url_input_base
