Migrating from 3.x to 4.x

Express 3.x to 4.0 migration guide. You may also be interested in New features in 4.x.

See Express 4.x docs for more examples and complete API documentation.

Overview

Express 4 no longer has Connect as a dependency. This means that ALL bundled middleware (except static) is no longer available on the express module. Each middleware is available as a module. (More on this below.)

This change allows middleware to receive fixes, updates, and releases, without impacting Express release cycles (and vice-versa).

These are not direct replacements. Please read their documentation before blindly using them with old arguments.

Others documented here: https://github.com/senchalabs/connect#middleware

Removed in Express 4

app.configure()

This method is no longer available.

If you wish to configure different routes based on environment, use either an if statement or another module.

app.configure('development', function() {
// configure stuff here
});
// becomes
var env \= process.env.NODE_ENV || 'development';
if ('development' \== env) {
// configure stuff here
}

app.routes()

This method is no longer available. See issue 2049.

app.router

The middleware stack has been overhauled! This reduces confusion with .use vs .get (or other HTTP verbs).

As a result, the need to manually do app.use(app.router) has been removed. See the Routers section (below) on the new middleware and routing API.

If you had code that looked like this:

app.use(cookieParser());
app.use(bodyParser());
/// .. other middleware .. doesn't matter what
app.use(app.router); // \*\*this line will be removed\*\*

// more middleware (executes after routes)
app.use(function(req, res, next) {});
// error handling middleware
app.use(function(err, req, res, next) {});

app.get('/' ...);
app.post(...);

app.router has been removed. Middleware and routes are now executed in the order they’re added.

Your code should move any calls to app.use that came after app.use(app.router) after any routes (HTTP verbs).

app.use(cookieParser());
app.use(bodyParser());
/// .. other middleware .. doesn't matter what

app.get('/' ...);
app.post(...);

// more middleware (executes after routes)
app.use(function(req, res, next) {});
// error handling middleware
app.use(function(err, req, res, next) {});

express.createServer()

Long deprecated. Just create new apps with express().

Connect middleware

All Connect middleware lives in separate modules (with the exception of express.static, which is provided for convenience). Everything else benefits from being a separate module, with its own versioning.

Connect’s patches

Connect patched Node’s prototypes globally. This is considered bad behavior, and was removed in Connect 3.

Some of these patches were:

You should no longer use these in any Connect or Express libraries.

res.charset

If you want Express to set a default charset (and you should!), use res.set('content-type') or res.type() to set the header.

A default charset will NOT be added when using res.setHeader().

This will no longer implicitly append val to the current list of Set-Cookie values. You will want to do that manually or use the res.cookie method to set cookies, which does this.

Changed in Express 4

app.use

app.use now accepts :params.

app.use("/users/:user_id", function (req, res, next) {
  // req.params.user_id exists here
});

req.accepted()

Use req.accepts() instead.

All use accepts internally. Please refer to accepts for any issues or documentation requests.

Note: these properties may have changed from arrays to functions. To continue using them as “arrays”, call them without arguments. For example, req.acceptsLanguages() // => ['en', 'es', 'fr'].

res.location()

No longer resolves relative URLs. Browsers will handle relative URLs themselves.

app.route → app.mountpath

When mounting an Express app in another Express app.

Changes to Configuration in Express 4

json spaces

In development, this is no longer enabled by default.

req.params

Is now an object instead of an array.

This won’t break your app if you used the req.params[##] style for regexp routes where parameter names are unknown.

res.locals

Is now an object instead of a function.

res.headerSent

Changed to headersSent to match the Node.js ServerResponse object.

You probably never used this, so it probably won’t be an issue.

req.is

Now uses type-is internally. Please refer to type-is for any issues or documentation requests.

Added in Express 4

app.route(path)

Returns a new Route instance. A Route is invoked when a request matching the route path is received. Routes can have their own middleware stacks. They also have methods for the HTTP VERBS to process requests.

See the Routes and Routing docs for more details on creating routes in Express.

Router and Route middleware

The Router has been overhauled. It is now a full-fledged middleware router.

The Router is a good way to separate your routes into files/modules—without sacrificing features like parameter matching and middleware.

Deprecated since 3.x

The following have been deprecated since 4.0 and affect you when upgrading from 3.x to the latest 4.x version. Check the Changelog for the latest changes.