How to get the full url in Express?

1. The protocol is available as req.protocol. docs here

   1. Before express 3.0, the protocol you can assume to be http unless you see that req.get('X-Forwarded-Protocol') is set and has the value https, in which case you know that's your protocol

2. The host comes from req.get('host') as Gopal has indicated

3. Hopefully you don't need a non-standard port in your URLs, but if you did need to know it you'd have it in your application state because it's whatever you passed to app.listen at server startup time. However, in the case of local development on a non-standard port, Chrome seems to include the port in the host header so req.get('host') returns localhost:3000, for example. So at least for the cases of a production site on a standard port and browsing directly to your express app (without reverse proxy), the host header seems to do the right thing regarding the port in the URL.

4. The path comes from req.originalUrl (thanks @pgrassant). Note this DOES include the query string. docs here on req.url and req.originalUrl. Depending on what you intend to do with the URL, originalUrl may or may not be the correct value as compared to req.url.

Combine those all together to reconstruct the absolute URL.

  var fullUrl = req.protocol + '://' + req.get('host') + req.originalUrl;

In 2021

The above answers are working fine but not preferred by the Documentation because url.parse is now legacy so I suggest you to use new URL() function if you want to get more control on url.

Express Way

You can get Full URL from the below code.

`${req.protocol}://${req.get('host')}${req.originalUrl}`

Example URL: http://localhost:5000/a/b/c?d=true&e=true#f=false

Fixed Properties ( you will get the same results in all routes )

req.protocol: http
req.hostname: localhost
req.get('Host'): localhost:5000
req.originalUrl: /a/b/c?d=true&e=true
req.query: { d: 'true', e: 'true' }

Not Fixed Properties ( will change in every route because it controlled by express itself )

Route: /

req.baseUrl: <blank>
req.url: /a/b/c?d=true&e=true
req.path: /a/b/c

Route /a

req.baseUrl: /a
req.url: /b/c?d=true&e=true
req.path: /b/c

Documentation: http://expressjs.com/en/api.html#req.baseUrl

URL Package Way

In the URL function, you will get the same results in every route so properties are always fixed.

Properties

const url = new URL(`${req.protocol}://${req.get('host')}${req.originalUrl}`);
console.log(url)

You will get the results like the below. I changed the order of the properties as per the image so it can match the image flow.

URL {
  href: 'http://localhost:5000/a/b/c?d=true&e=true',
  protocol: 'http:',
  username: '',
  password: '',
  hostname: 'localhost',
  port: '5000',
  host: 'localhost:5000',
  origin: 'http://localhost:5000',
  pathname: '/a/b/c',
  search: '?d=true&e=true',
  searchParams: URLSearchParams { 'd' => 'true', 'e' => 'true' },
  hash: ''
}

Note: Hash can not send to the server because it treats as Fragment in the server but you will get that in the client-side means browser.

Documentation: https://nodejs.org/api/url.html#url_new_url_input_base

Instead of concatenating the things together on your own, you could instead use the node.js API for URLs and pass URL.format() the informations from express.

Example:

var url = require('url');

function fullUrl(req) {
  return url.format({
    protocol: req.protocol,
    host: req.get('host'),
    pathname: req.originalUrl
  });
}

I found it a bit of a PITA to get the requested url. I can't believe there's not an easier way in express. Should just be req.requested_url

But here's how I set it:

var port = req.app.settings.port || cfg.port;
res.locals.requested_url = req.protocol + '://' + req.host  + ( port == 80 || port == 443 ? '' : ':'+port ) + req.path;