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Express: High Class Web Development For Nodejs

Express is a web framework for Node.js that is inspired by Sinatra. It allows for asynchronous routing and handling of requests. Express uses middleware for common tasks like parsing request bodies and uses template engines like Jade for rendering views. It also supports sessions, error handling, and has a large community and ecosystem of extensions.

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Constantin Zaharia
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102 views17 pages

Express: High Class Web Development For Nodejs

Express is a web framework for Node.js that is inspired by Sinatra. It allows for asynchronous routing and handling of requests. Express uses middleware for common tasks like parsing request bodies and uses template engines like Jade for rendering views. It also supports sessions, error handling, and has a large community and ecosystem of extensions.

Uploaded by

Constantin Zaharia
Copyright
© © All Rights Reserved
We take content rights seriously. If you suspect this is your content, claim it here.
Available Formats
Download as PDF, TXT or read online on Scribd
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express

high class web development for nodeJS

Dennis Blte, Rails Usergroup Hamburg, 11/10/2010

Whats express?
nodeJS based web framework
inspired by Sinatra
asynchronous
var app = express.createServer();
app.get('/', function(req, res){
res.send('Hello World');
});
app.listen(3000);

Installation
Install nodeJS
$ brew install node

Install npm (node package manager)


$ brew install npm

Install express
$ npm install express

Configuration (1)
app.configure(function(){
app.use(app.router);
app.use(express.staticProvider(__dirname + '/public'));
});
app.configure('development', function(){
app.use(express.errorHandler({
dumpExceptions: true,
showStack: true
}));
});
app.configure('production', function(){
app.use(express.errorHandler());
});

Configuration (2)
app.configure(function(){
app.set('views', __dirname + '/views');
app.set('views'); // => returns views dir
app.enable('feature'); // sets feature to true
app.disable('feature'); // sets feature to false
});

Starting with a specific environment:


$ NODE_ENV=production node app.js

Routing
app.get('/users/:id?', function(req, res) {
var id = req.params.id;
res.send(id ? 'user ' + id : 'users');
});
app.post('/users/:id.:format', function(req, res) {
var id = req.params.id;
var format = req.params.format;
res.send('user: ' + id + ' format: ' + format);
});
app.get('/file/*.*', function(req, res) {
res.send('path: ' + req.params);
});

Connect / Middlewares
Connect is a middleware framework
Similar to Rack
middleware is simply a function with
Athree
arguments: request, response, next
var helloWorld = function(req, res, next) {
res.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Type': 'text/plain' });
res.end('hello world');
}

Middlewares
var loadUser = function(req, res, next) {
var id = req.params.id;
var user = db.loadUser(id); // fetch user from db
if (user) {
req.user = user;
next();
} else {
next(new Error('Failed to load user ' + id));
}
}
app.get('/user/:id', loadUser, function(req, res) {
res.send('Viewing user ' + req.user.name);
});

HTTP POST
<form method="post" action="/">
<input type="text" name="user[name]" />
<input type="submit" value="Submit" />
</form>

bodyDecoder middleware for POST params:


app.use(express.bodyDecoder());
app.post('/', function(req, res){
console.log(req.body.user);
res.redirect('back');
});

HTTP PUT/DELETE
<form method="post" action="/">
<input type="hidden" name="_method" value="put" />
<input type="text" name="user[name]" />
<input type="submit" value="Submit" />
</form>

bodyDecoder and methodOverride:


app.use(express.bodyDecoder());
app.use(express.methodOverride());
app.post('/', function(req, res){
console.log(req.body.user);
res.redirect('back');
});

View Rendering
Concept: Layout, view and partials
Template Engines: Jade, Haml, EJS,
View variables are passed to render
app.set('view engine', 'jade');
app.get('/', function(req, res){
res.render('index.haml', {
layout: 'app', // -> app.jade
locals: { title: 'This is my app' }
});
});

Jade - Template Engine


!!! 5
html(lang="en")
head
title= pageTitle
:javascript
| if (foo)
|
bar()
body
h1 Jade - node template engine
#container
- if (youAreUsingJade)
p You are amazing
- else
p Get on it!
.comments
= partial('comment', comments)

Helpers
app.dynamicHelpers({
flashes: function(req, res) {
var msg = req.flash('message');
return msg.length ? '<p id="msg">' + msg + '</p>': '';
}
});
app.helpers({
linkTo: function(text, url) {
return '<a href=' + url + '>' + text + '</a>';
},
name: function(user) {
return user.firstName + ' ' + user.lastName;
}
});

Sessions
Currently depending on cookies
Store implementations: Memory, Redis,
app.use(express.cookieDecoder());
app.use(express.session());
app.post('/cart/add', function(req, res) {
req.session.items = req.body.items;
res.redirect('back');
});
app.get('/cart', function(req, res) {
var items = req.session.items;
res.render('cart', { locals: { items: items } });
});

Error Handling
The app.error() method receives exceptions
thrown within a route, or passed to next(err)
app.use(express.errorHandler({ dumpExceptions: true }));
app.error(function(err, req, res, next) {
if (err instanceof Unauthorized) {
res.render('401.jade', { locals: { error: err } });
} else if (err instanceof NotFound) {
res.render('404.jade');
} else {
next(err);
}
});

Why express?
Full-blown feature set
Built on Connect
Good documentation
Lots of examples
Many extensions
Nice community

Going further
http://expressjs.com/guide.html
http://expressjs.com/api.html
http://senchalabs.github.com/connect/
http://github.com/senchalabs/connect/wiki
http://github.com/visionmedia/express/tree/
master/examples/
https://github.com/dbloete/Codeshelver

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