What is a URL

URL stands for Uniform Resource Locator.

URL is an address of a resource on the internet.

• Resource can be things like a webpage or assets (e.g. image or video).

Anatomy of a URL

http://www.example.com:80/user?ref=Sam

http // protocol/scheme
www.example.com // domain name
80 // port
/user // path
? // query
ref=Sam // parameter

URI vs URL

URI (identify) and URL (locate).

• Locators are also identifiers.
• Every URL is a URI, but every URIs are not URLs.

What is a route

Routing refers to how an application’s endpoints (URIs) respond to client requests.

You define routing using methods of the Express app object that correspond to HTTP methods.

Impact of trailing slash in a URI

Trailing slash makes route a different URL.

# two different routes
/api/service_name
/api/service_name/

Trailing slash potentially leads to 307 Temporary Redirect error.