How to HTTP Redirect in Express

When you want to send your users to another page, you can make use of HTTP redirects.

HTTP redirects come in two types, permanent and temporary.

Permanent redirects use the code 301 and temporary redirects use the code 302.

In this post, we'll learn how to perform redirects using the popular Node web framework, Express.

How to Redirect on Express

Redirects in Express can only be performed inside routes because you need access to the request and response objects.

Let's define a basic route in Express:

JAVASCRIPT
app.get("/a", (req, res) => {
    // do something
});

To redirect users, you need to use the res.redirect method.

This method takes the new path as a parameter and sends the user to that path.

JAVASCRIPT
app.get("/a", (req, res) => {
    res.redirect("/b");
});

When a user visits your web app at the path /a, they will be redirected to the path /b.

Keep in mind that this is a temporary redirect.

Here's how to do a permanent redirect:

JAVASCRIPT
app.get("/a", (req, res) => {
    res.redirect(301, "/b");
});

Keep in mind that you can also simulate the back button by using the code back inside the redirect.

JAVASCRIPT
app.get("/a", (req, res) => {
    res.redirect("back");
});

Conclusion

In this post, we learned how to perform redirects using Express.

You can perform both permanent and temporary redirects by using the res.redirect method.

Thanks for reading and happy coding!

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