# Falcor Router [](https://travis-ci.org/Netflix/falcor-router)
## Developer Preview
**This release is a developer preview.** We are looking for community help to track down and fix bugs. We are also looking for help porting the Router to other platforms.
You can check out a working example server for a Netflix-like application [here](http://github.com/netflix/falcor-express-demo) right now. Alternately you can go through this short tutorial:
## Getting Started
Let's use the Falcor Router to build a Virtual JSON resource on an app server and host it at /model.json. The JSON resource will contain the following contents:
~~~js
{
"greeting": "Hello World"
}
~~~
Normally Routers retrieve the data for their Virtual JSON resource from backend data stores or other web services on-demand. However in this simple tutorial the Router will simply return static data for a single key.
### Creating a Virtual JSON Resource with a Falcor Router
First we create a folder for our application server.
~~~bash
mkdir falcor-app-server && cd !$
npm init
~~~
Now we install the Falcor Router.
~~~bash
npm i falcor-router -S
~~~
Then install [express](http://expressjs.com/) and [falcor-express](https://github.com/Netflix/falcor-express).
~~~bash
npm i express falcor-express -S
~~~
> Support for [Restify is also available](https://github.com/Netflix/falcor-restify.git) (including a [demo](https://github.com/Netflix/falcor-restify-demo.git)): `npm i restify falcor-restify -S`—as is [support for Hapi](https://github.com/Netflix/falcor-router.git): `npm i hapi falcor-hapi -S`.
Now we create an index.js file with the following contents:
~~~js
// index.js
var falcorExpress = require('falcor-express');
var Router = require('falcor-router');
var express = require('express');
var app = express();
app.use('/model.json', falcorExpress.dataSourceRoute(function (req, res) {
// create a Virtual JSON resource with single key ("greeting")
return new Router([
{
// match a request for the key "greeting"
route: "greeting",
// respond with a PathValue with the value of "Hello World."
get: function() {
return {path:["greeting"], value: "Hello World"};
}
}
]);
}));
// statically host all files in current directory
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/'));
var server = app.listen(3000);
~~~
Now we run the server, which will listen on port 3000 for requests for /model.json.
~~~sh
node index.js
~~~
### Retrieving Data from the Virtual JSON resource
Now that we've built a simple virtual JSON document with a single read-only key "greeting", we will create a test web page and retrieve this key from the server.
Now create an index.html file with the following contents:
~~~html
~~~
Now visit http://localhost:3000/index.html and you should see the message retrieved from the server:
Hello World
## More Information
For an example of a Router built for a Netflix-like application, see [this repository](http://github.com/netflix/falcor-router-demo).
For in-depth information on the Falcor Router, see the Router Guide in the [Falcor Website](http://netflix.github.io/falcor).
For discussion please use [Stack Overflow](http://stackoverflow.com/questions/tagged/falcor).