Response helpers

There are a few options here… 🤔

1. Add a standalone package that releases basic send, json, etc helpers

   send(res, code, data);
   

   This would mean removing app.send from the core server, which isn’t too bad since it’s only accessible if you define a app = polka() ahead of your route handler(s).

   A) Do we want to be explicit & require everything to be set?

   send(res, code=200, data='', headers={}) {
     res.writeHead(code, headers);
     res.end(data || STATUS_CODES[code]);
   }
   

   B) Or do we want to infer Content-Type based on the data type (zeit/micro does this)?

   const TYPE = 'Content-Type';
   const LENGTH = 'Content-Length';
   
   send(res, code=200, data='', headers={}) {
     let len, type=headers[TYPE];
     data = data || STATUS_CODES[code];
     // pseudo-code
     if (data instanceof Stream) {
       type = type || 'application/octet-stream';
     } else if (data instanceof Buffer) {
       len = data.length;
       type = type || 'application/octet-stream';
     } else if (typeof data === 'object') {
       data = JSON.stringify(data);
       len = data.length;
       type = 'application/json';
     } else {
       type = type || 'text/plain';
       len = data.length;
     }
    // update
    headers[TYPE] = type;
    headers[LENGTH] = len;
    // write
    res.writeHead(code, headers);
    res.end(data);
   }
   

2. Add a middleware package that attaches helpers directly to the res object?

   This would mimic Express, potentially offering all/most of them.

Please vote 🙏

Please know that all options would live as external packages and not inside Polka directly.

[lukeed]

Okay, so first of all, thank you all for your feedback! 😃

I’ve decided to release sub-packages that you all can install a la carte, depending on your values and needs.

• Option 1A exists as @polka/send

• Option 1B exists as @polka/send-type

• Option 2 doesn’t exist yet, but I’ll open an issue to track it.

Thank you again for all your help! 🙏 I’m going to try and release a few more sub-packages before releasing everything as a 0.3.0.

[icebob]

If you want to stay a minimal server, I think the A is better. And maybe you can create a middleware which implements the B logic.