Node.js Tutorial: How to Get Started with Node

Configuring the Express server in Node

Express is one of the most deployed software programs on the Internet. It can be a minimalist server framework for Node that handles all the essential elements of HTTP and can also be extended by “middleware” plugins.

Since we already installed Express, we can go directly to defining a server. Open the example.js file we used earlier and replaced the content with this simple Express server:

import express from 'express';

const app = express();
const port = 3000;

app.get('/', (req, res) => {
  res.send('Hello, InfoWorld!');
});

app.listen(port, () => {
  console.log(`Express server at http://localhost:${port}`);
});

This program does the same as our previous one. http module version. The biggest change is that we have added routing. Express makes it easy for us to associate a URL path, such as the root path (‘/’), with the controller function.

If we wanted to add another route, it might look like this:

app.get('/about', (req, res) => {
  res.send('This is the About page.');
});

Once we have the basic web server configured with one or more routes, we will probably need to create some API endpoints that respond with JSON. Below is an example of a route that returns a JSON object:

app.get('/api/user', (req, res) => {
  res.json({
	id: 1,
	name: 'John Doe',
	role: 'Admin'
  });
});

This is a simple example, but it gives you an idea of ​​how to work with Express in Node.

Conclusion

In this article, you have seen how to install Node and NPM and how to configure simple and more advanced web servers in Node. Although we’ve only touched on the basics, these examples demonstrate many elements necessary for all Node applications, including the ability to import modules.

Whenever you need a package to do something in Node, you will most likely find it available at MNP. Visit the official site and use the search function to find what you need. To get more information about a package, you can use the npms.io tool. Note that a project’s status depends on its weekly download metric (visible in NPM for the package itself). You can also check a project’s GitHub page to see how many stars it has and how many times it has been forked; both are good measures of success and stability. Another important metric is how frequently the project is updated and maintained. That information is also visible on a project’s GitHub Insights page.