Modify routing in Sails to use something else than id? - sails.js

Question

I have a web app which talks to my backend node.js+sails app through a socket.
Default routes for sockets use id. As example
io.socket.get('/chatroom/5')
My app doesn't authenticate users and as result I want id's to be random, so nobody can guess it. However, id's are generated by mongoDB and aren't that random.
As result, I want to use some other field (a.e. "randomId") and update routing for this model to use this field instead of id.
What's the best way to do it?
P.S. It looks like I have to use policies, but still struggling to figure out what should I do exactly.

Answer 1

You aren't forced to use the default blueprint routes in your app; you can always override them with custom controller methods or turn them off entirely.
The GET /chatroom/:id method automatically routes to the find action of your ChatroomController.js file. If you don't have a custom action, the blueprint action is used. So in your case, you could define something like the following in ChatroomController.js:
find: function (req, res) {
// Get the id parameter from the route
var id = req.param('id');
// Use it to look up a different field
Chatroom.find({randomId: id}).exec(function(err, chatrooms) {
if (err) {return res.serverError(err);}
// Subscribe to these rooms (optional)
Chatroom.subscribe(req, chatrooms);
// Return the room records
return res.json(chatrooms);
});
}
If you don't like the name find or the param id, you can set your own route in config/routes.js:
"GET /chatroom/:randomid": "ChatroomController.myFindActionName"
Also, re:
Default routes for sockets use id.
those routes aren't just for sockets--they respond to regular HTTP requests as well!

Answer 2

I created a policy. This policy converts randomId (which is passed as :id) to real id and saves it in req.options.id (which Sails will pick up).
module.exports = function(req, res, next) {
var Model = req._sails.models[req.options.model];
var randomId = req.params.all()['id'];
Model.findOne().where({ randomId: randomId }).exec(function(err, record) {
req.options.id = record.id;
return next();
});
};
And I apply this policy to findOne and update actions of my controller:
ChatRoomController: {
findOne : 'useRandomId',
update : 'useRandomId'
}