Building an HTTP Server

• Building an HTTP Server
  • Pre-Requisites
  • Setup an npm repo dir
  • Install express
  • Spin up a simle http server
  • Try It Out
  • Next-Step Options

Here, a project will get started.
A directory will be created that holds the project, and the directory will be initialized for npm to help manage node dependencies.
A few dependencies will be added & a super simple http server will be setup & runnable.

Pre-Requisites

Have node installed on the machine. Node comes with npm

Setup an npm repo dir

Create the directory where this http server will live. Here, the directory will be called "web-server".

mkdir web-server

Initialize the directory as an place for npm to manage, then add an index.js file where the beginning of the express http server code will live.

# make the dir
cd web-server

Initialize the repo as an npm repo && make a file that will hold the server code.

npm init -y

// add the index.js file
touch index.js

Install express

The version is explicit here

npm install express@4.17.1

Spin up a simle http server

Based on the express docs hello world example, build a server in just a few lines of code

const express = require('express');
const expressObj = express();
const port = process.env.API_PORT || 3000;

function helloHandler(req, res) {
  return res.send('Hello World!');
}

function listenCallback() {
  console.log(`Node HTTP Server listening on http://localhost:${port}`);
}

expressObj.get('/', helloHandler);

expressObj.listen(port, listenCallback);

Try It Out

from a terminal

• if not already in the server directory, cd into the directory that holds the http server
• set an API_PORT environment variable && run node with the root index.js file

API_PORT=9876 node .

the terminal should output

Example app listening at http://localhost:9876

Next-Step Options

One path to go here is to send some html (and more) to the dom.
Another path to consider is to consider dig into server scaling (coming soon).