Book Image

Node.js Web Development - Third Edition

By : David Herron
Book Image

Node.js Web Development - Third Edition

By: David Herron

Overview of this book

Node.js is a server-side JavaScript platform using an event driven, non-blocking I/O model allowing users to build fast and scalable data-intensive applications running in real time. Node.js Web Development shows JavaScript is not just for browser-side applications. It can be used for server-side web application development, real-time applications, microservices, and much more. This book gives you an excellent starting point, bringing you straight to the heart of developing web applications with Node.js. You will progress from a rudimentary knowledge of JavaScript and server-side development to being able to create and maintain your own Node.js application. With this book you'll learn how to use the HTTP Server and Client objects, data storage with both SQL and MongoDB databases, real-time applications with Socket.IO, mobile-first theming with Bootstrap, microservice deployment with Docker, authenticating against third-party services using OAuth, and much more.
Table of Contents (18 chapters)
Node.js Web Development Third Edition
Credits
About the Author
About the Reviewer
www.PacktPub.com
Preface
Index

Making HTTP Client requests


The next way to mitigate computationally intensive code is to push the calculation to a backend process. To explore that strategy, we'll request computations from a backend Fibonacci server using the HTTP Client object to do so. However, before we look at that, let's first talk in general about using the HTTP Client object.

Node.js includes an HTTP Client object useful for making HTTP requests. It has enough capability to issue any kind of HTTP request, but, for example, it does not emulate a full browser, so don't get delusions of this being a full-scale test automation tool. Its scope focuses solely on the HTTP protocol. It's possible to build a browser emulator on top of this HTTP client, for example, to build a test automation tool. The HTTP Client object can be used for any kind of HTTP request, such as calling a Representational State Transfer (REST) web service.

Let's start with some code inspired by the wget or curl commands to make HTTP requests and show...