Learning Node, 2nd Edition

Chapter 5. Node and the Web

Node isn’t yet at the point where it can replace the fairly ubiquitous Apache/PHP killer combination, but it is gaining in popularity, especially considering the ease in creating cross-platform applications and the support it has among the big tech companies.

In this chapter, we’ll explore Node’s webby roots, including a more in-depth look at the HTTP module, as well as try our hand at creating a very simple static web server. We’ll also look at core Node modules that simplify the web development experience.

The HTTP Module: Server and Client

Don’t expect to use the HTTP module to re-create a web server with the sophistication of Apache or Nginx. As the Node documentation notes, it’s low-level, focusing on stream handling and message parsing. Still, it provides the foundational support for more sophisticated functionality, such as Express, covered in Chapter 10.

The HTTP module supports several objects, including http.Server, which is what’s returned when you use the http.createServer() function demonstrated in Chapter 1. In that example, we embedded a callback function to handle the web request, but we can also use separate events, since http.Server inherits from EventEmitter.

var http = require('http');

var server = http.createServer().listen(8124);

server.on('request', function(request,response) {

   response.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'text/plain'});
   response.end('Hello World\n');
});

console.log('server listening ...