4. Writing an Express.js Server | Web Development with MongoDB and Node.js

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Web Development with MongoDB and Node.js

By : Jason Krol

4 (12)

Web Development with MongoDB and Node.js

4 (12)

By: Jason Krol

Overview of this book

This book is designed for developers of any skill level that want to get up and running using Node.js and MongoDB to build full featured web applications. A basic understanding of JavaScript and HTML is the only requirement for this book.

Preface

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Free Chapter

1. Welcome to JavaScript in the Full Stack

1. Welcome to JavaScript in the Full Stack

Node.js changed JavaScript forever

The NoSQL movement

Summary

2. Getting Up and Running

2. Getting Up and Running

Environment assumptions and requirements

Installing Node.js

Installing the MongoDB server

Writing your first app

Summary

3. Node and MongoDB Basics

3. Node and MongoDB Basics

A JavaScript Primer

The basics of NodeJS

Installing modules using npm

The basics of MongoDB

Additional resources

Summary

4. Writing an Express.js Server

4. Writing an Express.js Server

What is Express.js?

Building a complete web application

Organizing the files

Server.js – where it all begins

Configuration module

Routers and controllers

Custom middleware

Migrating to Express v4.0.0

Summary

5. Dynamic HTML with Handlebars

5. Dynamic HTML with Handlebars

Basic syntax for Handlebars

Views

Layouts

Partial views

Handlebars Helpers

Rendering the views

Summary

6. Controllers and View Models

6. Controllers and View Models

Controllers

View models

Updating the home controller

Updating the image controller

Helpers for reusable code

Iterating on the UI

Summary

7. Persisting Data with MongoDB

7. Persisting Data with MongoDB

Using MongoDB with Node

Introducing Mongoose

Defining the schema and models

Adding CRUD to the controllers

Iterating by adding an image removal capability

Refactoring and improvements

Summary

8. Creating a RESTful API

8. Creating a RESTful API

What is an API?

What is a RESTful API?

Introducing Postman REST Client

Creating a Basic API server

Responding to GET requests

Receiving data – POST and PUT requests

Removing data – DELETE

Consuming external APIs from Node.js

Summary

9. Testing Your Code

9. Testing Your Code

Tools of the trade

Writing and running your first test

Testing the application

Spy and stub everything!

Summary

10. Deploying with Cloud-based Services

10. Deploying with Cloud-based Services

Cloud versus traditional hosting

Introduction to Git

Deploying your application

Summary

11. Single Page Applications with Popular Frontend Frameworks

11. Single Page Applications with Popular Frontend Frameworks

What is a Single Page Application?

Why use a frontend framework?

Frontend development tools

Testing and test-driven development

Summary

12. Popular Node.js Web Frameworks

12. Popular Node.js Web Frameworks

Meteor

Sails

hapi

Koa

Flatiron

Summary

Index

Index

Customer Reviews

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Configuration module

Since we are leaving our server.js file very lean, there is still a fair amount of logic that is required in configuring our server. For this, we will defer to a custom module that we'll create called configure. To get started, create a file named configure.js in the server folder. Let's first install the dependencies that we are going to be using inside our configure module by performing another npm install:

$ npm install express3-handlebars --save

Here we just installed Handlebars, a popular template-rendering engine for HTML pages. Now that the module is installed and ready to be used, let's start writing the configure.js file. First, like any of our modules, we will declare our dependencies:

var connect = require('connect'),
    path = require('path'),
    //routes = require('./routes'),
    exphbs = require('express3-handlebars');

module.exports = function(app) {
  // configuration code...

  return app;
};

In the preceding code, we declared variables for each of...

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