NodeJS Express GetStarted

Posted by On 4月 13, 2015 0 Comment

NodeJS Express

Express is web framework like Rails.
The latest version(2015/04/) is 4.x. 3.x and 4.x are different.

Install Express4

If you don’t have node in your env. Please install node first.
In Mac case, this is an entry(NodeJS Get started in Mac OS X)
Install express
We need 2 packages

npm install -g express 
npm install -g express-generator

Create Express Application

To create Express4 Application Template, we can use express-generator

express application

application is your application name
By default, express application is Jade template.
If you want to use EJS, add -e option

express -e application

IDE

Eclipse and Nodejs plugin, WebStorm etc…
Debug and Start application from IDE, and set break point. Those are the points.
In my opinion, WebStorm is very good. WebStorm is not free.
I tried trial version first(30days).

WebStrom has import feature, and you can import express template application project in your WebStrom

Start Application

By default, Express4 application doesn’t have any server listen parts.
We need to add listen part.
Please add following codes before module.exports.

// Start
app.listen(3000);
module.exports = app;

To start application, type command

node app.js

app.js is main codes in Express.

Directory Structure

Application
|- bin
|   |- www
|- node_moduels     : NodeJS modules
|- public           : Web public directory(images, css, javascript etc...)
     |- images
     |- javascripts
     |- stylesheets
|- routes           : Routing files
     |- index.js
     |- user.js
|- views
     |- index.jade(.ejs)
|- app.js           : main codes
|- package.json     : package file

app.js is main codes. settings and read files and configuration etc…
This is main parts of express codes.
public is public directory. You can put static contents such as images, javascripts, css etc…
package.json is dependency node modules management file. This is like Gemfile in Rails
views is view file directory. You can put jade, ejs, view file in here.
You can access view file in express application
node_modules is dependencies module directory. We saved modules in here.
routes is route decision directory. You write route and route action in here.

How to learn?

Express Web page is helpful for you(here).

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