First we'll install @babel/cli
, @babel/core
and @babel/preset-env
.
$ npm install --save-dev @babel/cli @babel/core @babel/preset-env
Then we'll create a .babelrc
file for configuring babel.
$ touch .babelrc
This will host any options we might want to configure babel
with.
{
"presets": ["@babel/preset-env"]
}
Then create our server in index.js
.
$ touch index.js
import http from 'http';
const server = http.createServer((req, res) => {
res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'text/plain'});
res.end('Hello World\n');
}).listen(1337, '127.0.0.1');
console.log('Server running at http://127.0.0.1:1337/');
export default server;
With recent changes to babel, you will need to transpile your ES6 before node can run it.
So, we'll add our first script, build
, in package.json
.
"scripts": {
+ "build": "babel index.js -d dist"
}
Then we'll add our start
script in package.json
.
"scripts": {
"build": "babel index.js -d dist",
+ "start": "npm run build && node dist/index.js"
}
Now let's start our server.
$ npm start
You should now be able to visit http://127.0.0.1:1337
and see Hello World
.
We can improve our npm start
script with nodemon
.
$ npm install --save-dev nodemon
Then we can update our npm start
script.
"scripts": {
"build": "babel index.js -d dist",
- "start": "npm run build && node dist/index.js"
+ "start": "npm run build && nodemon dist/index.js"
}
Then we'll restart our server.
$ npm start
You should now be able to make changes to index.js
and our server should be
restarted automatically by nodemon
.
Go ahead and replace Hello World
with Hello {{YOUR_NAME_HERE}}
while our
server is running.
If you visit http://127.0.0.1:1337
you should see our server greeting you.
First let's move our server index.js
file to lib/index.js
.
$ mkdir lib
$ mv index.js lib/index.js
And update our npm start
script to reflect the location change.
"scripts": {
- "build": "babel index.js -d dist",
+ "build": "babel lib -d dist",
"start": "npm run build && nodemon dist/index.js"
}
Next let's add a new task: npm run serve
.
"scripts": {
"build": "babel lib -d dist",
"start": "npm run build && nodemon dist/index.js",
+ "serve": "node dist/index.js"
}
Now we can use npm run build
for precompiling our assets, and npm run serve
for starting our server in production.
$ npm run build
$ npm run serve
This means we can quickly restart our server without waiting for babel
to
recompile our files.
Oh, let's not forget to add dist
to our .gitignore
file:
$ touch .gitignore
dist
This will make sure we don't accidentally commit our built files to git.
Finally let's make sure our server is well tested.
Let's install mocha
.
$ npm install --save-dev mocha
And create our test in test/index.js
.
$ mkdir test
$ touch test/index.js
import http from 'http';
import assert from 'assert';
import server from '../lib/index.js';
describe('Example Node Server', () => {
it('should return 200', done => {
http.get('http://127.0.0.1:1337', res => {
assert.equal(200, res.statusCode);
server.close();
done();
});
});
});
Next, install @babel/register
for the require hook.
$ npm install --save-dev @babel/register
Then we can add an npm test
script.
"scripts": {
"start": "nodemon lib/index.js --exec babel-node",
"build": "babel lib -d dist",
"serve": "node dist/index.js",
+ "test": "mocha --require @babel/register"
}
Now let's run our tests.
$ npm test
You should see the following:
Server running at http://127.0.0.1:1337/
Example Node Server
β should return 200
1 passing (43ms)
That's it!