🤔 Dynamically Remove Routes

[Zeedinstein]

Is there a way to dynamically remove routes from fiber.App or a fiber.Group, so that the route can not be accessed anymore and removed from memory. This is something I could do in express by accessing the app.stack which was just an array of the configured routes.

I see in fiber I can get all the configured routes using app.Routes() but I don't have access to app.stack

Is this possible to do with fiber?

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[Fenny]

Hi @Zeedinstein, our private stack is not really user friendly and rather complex that could cause problems when changing it.

We could add a safe method like Remove() / Delete() for the Route struct, I have have to think this through before making any changes, so feedback is welcome!

func main() {
	app := fiber.New()

	tmp := app.Get("/", func(c *fiber.Ctx) {
		c.Send("I'm reserved for 1 request 😭")
		c.Route().Remove()
	})

	app.Get("/remove", func(c *fiber.Ctx) {
		tmp.Remove()
	})

	log.Fatal(app.Listen(3000))
}

[Zeedinstein]

Yeah looking at the source code I can see why it's complicated.

You would probably have to rebuild the app's stack array.

[Zeedinstein]

Here is the code I tried to get working(It's probably not the best code to do this):

func (app *App) Remove(method string, path string) {
	method = strings.ToUpper(method)
	methodINT := methodInt(method)
	if methodINT != -1 {
		removed := false
		newStack := make([][]*Route, len(intMethod))
		for x, route := range app.stack[methodINT] {
			if route.path == path {
				app.routes--
				removed = true
				continue
			}
			if removed {
				app.stack[methodINT][x].pos = x - 1
				newStack[methodINT] = append(app.stack[methodINT], app.stack[methodINT][x])
			} else {
				newStack[methodINT] = append(app.stack[methodINT], app.stack[methodINT][x])
			}
		}
		app.stack = newStack
	}
}

This passes this test:

func Test_App_Remove(t *testing.T) {
	app := New()
	h := func(c *Ctx) {}
	app.Get("/Get", h)
	app.Head("/Head", h)
	app.Post("/post", h)
	utils.AssertEqual(t, 3, len(app.Routes()))
	app.Remove("GET", "/Get")
	utils.AssertEqual(t, 2, len(app.Routes()))
}

But fails for this test:

func Test_App_Remove(t *testing.T) {
	app := New()
	h := func(c *Ctx) {}
	app.Get("/Get", h)
	app.Head("/Head", h)
	app.Post("/post", h)
	utils.AssertEqual(t, 3, len(app.Routes()))
	app.Remove("GET", "/Get")
	utils.AssertEqual(t, 2, len(app.Routes()))
	resp, err := app.Test(httptest.NewRequest("GET", "/Get", nil))
	utils.AssertEqual(t, nil, err)
	utils.AssertEqual(t, 404, resp.StatusCode)
}

So it updates the app.stack but not the actual routes. So I'm not sure how the routes are getting registered in memory.

[kiyonlin]

Thanks for your suggestion @Zeedinstein . Removing routes dynamically will effect requests which are matching. That’ll cost a lot to ensure data security and consistency.

Let us know whether the issue is resolved!

[Fenny]

I have to agree with @kiyonlin, I don't think a web framework should solve dynamic problems like this.

A better approach would be to have an one catch all handler and lookup the user registered paths and respond accordingly.

It would achieve the same results but with faster response time, because if the route is removed from the stack it would loop trough all routes looking for a match on each request resulting in a slower 404 versus providing one yourself on a early match 👍

I hope this answered your question, feel free to close this issue 👍

[jozsefsallai]

I would like to see a real-world use case of deleting routes dynamically

[mirusky]

Instead of removing it is possible to overwrite the handler? Like Iris

[camdenorrb]

Modular routes, boom big use case