Start a server

The general ways to start a server.

Node

Run as:

$ node server.js

NPM

This will lookup server.js by default.

$ npm serve

HTTP

Using the Node builtin module.

See HTTP module docs.

Basic

Example based on Getting started with NodeJS for frontend developers - Part 1.

Set up HTTP server with returns a greeting as plain text.

  • server.js 
      const http = require('http')

  http.createServer((req, resp) => {
    resp.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Type': 'text/html' });
    resp.write(`<p>Hello, world! You requested ${req.url}</p>`);
    resp.end();
  }).listen(3000);

Start the app. Note you won’t see any output and this is a blocking call.

Then open the browser at:

Note that you can use any path and you’ll get the same response.

Parse the query string

Based on Node.js HTTP Module on W3 Schools.

Use the url builtin module.

var http = require('http');
var url = require('url');

http.createServer(function (req, res) {
  res.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Type': 'text/html' });

  var q = url.parse(req.url, true).query;
  var text = q.year + " " + q.month;
  res.end(text);
}).listen(3000);

Open in the browser:

Result:

2017 July

3rd-party packages

See the Express static server page for using Express.