Hello World

Let's build our first add-on. In keeping with tradition, this add-on will result in a Node module that will print out Hello World!. Even though this is a very simple example, it typifies the structure of all further C++ add-ons you will build. This allows you to incrementally experiment with new commands and structures, growing your knowledge in easy to understand steps.

C++ files are typically given a .cc extension. To start, we create a hello.cc file:

#include <node.h>
#include <v8.h>

using namespace v8;

Handle<Value> Method(const Arguments& args) {
  HandleScope scope;
  return scope.Close(String::New("Hello World!"));
}

void init(Handle<Object> target) {
  target->Set(String::NewSymbol("hello"),
    FunctionTemplate::New(Method)->GetFunction());
}

NODE_MODULE(hello, init)

This example includes the Node and V8 libraries, building our module using the same libraries Node modules build on NODE_MODULE is simply a...