How to Create Your First Node JS Application

Node.js is useful for building back-end services like APIs, Web Applications or Mobile Applications. It’s used in production by large companies such as Walmart, Uber, Netflix, Paypal, etc.

In this tutorial, we are going to see how we can create and run our first Node JS application.

Free Web And Mobile App Template Source Code

Let’s get started!

1. Download Node JS

First you need to download Node JS. To confirm that it is installed run the command:

node -v

2. Create a folder and open it up in the terminal

Create a project folder and call it whatever you want to call it. Then open up that folder in your terminal / command prompt and run the following command:

npm init

The npm init command is used to create a Node.js project. The npm init command will create a package where the project files will be stored. All the modules you download will be stored in the package.json file

You will be prompted to add the following project information when creating a project:

Project name
Project initial version
Project description
The project’s entry point
The project’s test command
The project’s git repository
The project’s license

The default project entry point is usually index.js. Although that can differ from server to server as will look for app.js or main.js to run your application.

3. Add express server

Next, we will add our express server dependency. Express will give you an easier solution to middleware, routing, templating and even debugging.

Run the command:

npm i express

Your package.json file should look like this

create a node js application — package.json

4. Create the index.js file

Now, go to your directory and create a file called index.js, which will be the entry point to our application and add the following code:

const express = require('express');  
const app = express();               
const port = 5000;  //port number where your server will be listening

app.get('/', (req, res) => {  //get requests to the root ("/") 
    res.sendFile('index.html', {root: __dirname});                                                            
});

app.listen(port, () => { //server starts listening 
    console.log(`listening on port ${port}`);
});

5. Create the index.html file

<!DOCTYPE html>
<html lang="en">
    <head>
        <meta charset="UTF-8">
        <meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0">

        <title>Node JS Simple App</title>
    </head>
    <body>
        <div>Hello World!</div>
    </body>
</html>

6. Finally, Run your application

Run your app with the following command:

node index

Congratulations!

You have created your first node JS application.

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