Creating a Basic API server

Let's create a super basic Node.js server using Express that we'll use to create our own API. Then, we can send tests to the API using Postman REST Client to see how it all works. In a new project workspace, first install the npm modules that we're going to need in order to get our server up and running:

$ npm init
$ npm install --save express body-parser underscore

Now that the package.json file for this project has been initialized and the modules installed, let's create a basic server file to bootstrap up an Express server. Create a file named server.js and insert the following block of code:

var express = require('express'),
    bodyParser = require('body-parser'),
    _ = require('underscore'),
    json = require('./movies.json'),
    app = express();

app.set('port', process.env.PORT || 3500);

app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded());
app.use(bodyParser.json());

var router = new express.Router();
// TO DO: Setup endpoints ...
app.use('/', router);

var server ...