WDI Darth Vader

Introduction to Node

Getting Started

1. package.json

We're going to create a package.json file for our new application. This contains information about your app, such as:

• Application's name
• Author
• Git(hub) repository
• Current version
• License And in the future, it will also save any dependancies your application may have.

Let's Give it a Try

• To get started, create a new project folder. Change directory to that folder.
• Next, create an empty Javascript file to host our application: touch app.js
• Then, enter the following command:

• That's right: npm init

You'll be prompted through a variety of questions, such as:

name: an_api
version: (1.0.0) 0.1.0
description: My first express api
entry point: (index.js) app.js
test command:
git repository: https://github.com/code-for-coffee/express_api
keywords:
author: your-user-name
license: (ISC) MIT

This generates the following package.json file:

{
  "name": "Tasker",
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "description": "The MEAN way to track your Tasks!",
  "main": "app.js",
  "scripts": {
    "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
  },
  "repository": {
    "type": "git",
    "url": "https://github.com/code-for-coffee/Tasker"
  },
  "author": "code-for-coffee",
  "license": "MIT",
  "bugs": {
    "url": "https://github.com/code-for-coffee/Tasker/issues"
  },
  "homepage": "https://github.com/code-for-coffee/Tasker"
}

2. Setting Application dependancies

Use npm install <pkg> --save afterwards to install a package and save it as a dependency in the package.json file.

We're going to be using the following dependancies in our MEAN application:

• Express.js
• MongoDB
• Angular.js

To get started, let's go ahead and add Express.js to our project by running the following command:

npm install express --save

• Once you run this command, a dependency object will be created inside of your package.json. Go ahead - take a look!
• It looks like this, right?

  "dependencies": {
  "express": "^4.12.4"
  }
  

• All node package files are saved to node_modules.
• If provided a package.json file from another project, you can run the npm install command to fetch/install the required packages for that app!

3. Installing the Express 4.0 Application Generator

We want to be able to generate applications in the same way that Ruby on Rails can. We're going to run a command to install an Express.js application generator:

sudo npm install -g express-generator

We'll touch more on this later.

4. Make sure we're all set

We're going to run a few commands to make sure we have the required dependencies for our application:

node --version    #checks node version
npm --version     #checks npm version
express --version #checks express version