Preface

The principles of asynchronous event-driven programming are perfect for today's Web, where efficient real-time applications and scalability are at the forefront. Server-side JavaScript has been here since the nineties, but Node got it right. With a thriving community and interest from the Internet giants, it could be the PHP of tomorrow.

Node Cookbook shows you how to transfer your JavaScript skills to server-side programming. With simple examples and supporting code, Node Cookbook takes you through various server-side scenarios, often saving you time, effort, and trouble by demonstrating best practices and showing you how to avoid security mistakes.

Beginning with making your own web server, the practical recipes in this cookbook are designed to smoothly progress you to making full web applications, command-line applications, and Node modules. Node Cookbook takes you through interfacing with various database backends, such as MySQL, MongoDB, and Redis, working with web sockets, and interfacing with network protocols, such as SMTP. Additionally, there are recipes on handling streams of data, security implementations, writing, your own Node modules, and different ways to take your apps live.

What this book covers

Chapter 1, Making a Web Server, covers serving dynamic and static content, caching files in memory, streaming large files straight from disk over HTTP, and securing your web server.

Chapter 2, Exploring the HTTP Object, explains receiving and processing POST requests and file uploads, using Node as an HTTP client, and discusses how to throttle downloads.

Chapter 3, Working with Data Serialization, explains how to convert data from your apps into XML and JSON formats for sending to the browser or third-party APIs.

Chapter 4, Interfacing with Databases, covers how to implement persistent data stores with Redis, CouchDB, MongoDB, MySQL, or plain CSV files.

Chapter 5, Transcending AJAX: Using WebSockets, helps you to make real-time web apps with modern browser WebSocket technology, gracefully degrade to long-polling and other methods with Socket.io.

Chapter 6, Accelerating Development with Express, explains how to leverage the Express framework to achieve rapid web development. It also covers using template languages and CSS engines, such as LESS and Stylus.

Chapter 7, Implementing Security, Encryption, and Authentication, explains how to set up an SSL secured web server, use the crypto module to create strong password hashes, and protect your users from cross-site request forgery attacks.

Chapter 8, Integrating Network Paradigms, discusses sending emails and creating your own email server, sending SMS text messages, implementing virtual hosting, and doing fun and interesting things with raw TCP.

Chapter 9, Writing Your Own Node Modules explains how to create a test suite, write a solution, refactor, improve and extend, and then deploy your own Node module.

Chapter 10, Taking It Live discusses how to deploy your web apps to a live server, ensure your apps stay live with crash recovery techniques, implement a continuous deployment work flow, or alternatively simply use a Platform as a Service Provider.

What you need for this book

• Windows, Mac OS X, or Linux

• Node 0.6.x or Node 0.8.x freely obtained from http://www.nodejs.org

Will continue to be relevant on Node's 1.x.x release

Who this book is for

If you have some knowledge of JavaScript and want to build fast, efficient, scalable client-server solutions, then Node Cookbook is for you. Experienced users of Node will improve their skills, and even if you have not worked with Node before, these practical recipes will make it easy to get started.

Conventions

In this book, you will find a number of styles of text that distinguish between different kinds of information. Here are some examples of these styles, and an explanation of their meaning.

Code words in text are shown as follows: " In order to create the server we need the http module."

A block of code is set as follows:

var http = require('http');
http.createServer(function (request, response) {
response.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type': 'text/html'});
response.end('Woohoo!');
}).listen(8080);

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

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

http.createServer(function (request, response) {
var lookup=path.basename(decodeURI(request.url));

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

sudo npm -g install express

New terms and important words are shown in bold. Words that you see on the screen, in menus or dialog boxes for example, appear in the text like this: "We could make it possible for a hypothetical user to indicate if they were inspired by a quote, such as a Like button."

Note

Warnings or important notes appear in a box like this.

Note

Tips and tricks appear like this.

Reader feedback

Feedback from our readers is always welcome. Let us know what you think about this book — what you liked or may have disliked. Reader feedback is important for us to develop titles that you really get the most out of.

To send us general feedback, simply send an e-mail to <[e-mail]>, and mention the book title via the subject of your message.

If there is a book that you need and would like to see us publish, please send us a note in the SUGGEST A TITLE form on www.packtpub.com or e-mail <[e-mail]>.

If there is a topic that you have expertise in and you are interested in either writing or contributing to a book, see our author guide on www.packtpub.com/authors.

Customer support

Now that you are the proud owner of a Packt book, we have a number of things to help you to get the most from your purchase.

Downloading the example code

You can download the example code files for all Packt books you have purchased from your account at http://www.PacktPub.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit http://www.PacktPub.com/support and register to have the files e-mailed directly to you.

Errata

Although we have taken every care to ensure the accuracy of our content, mistakes do happen. If you find a mistake in one of our books — maybe a mistake in the text or the code — we would be grateful if you would report this to us. By doing so, you can save other readers from frustration and help us improve subsequent versions of this book. If you find any errata, please report them by visiting http://www.packtpub.com/support, selecting your book, clicking on the errata submission form link, and entering the details of your errata. Once your errata are verified, your submission will be accepted and the errata will be uploaded on our website, or added to any list of existing errata, under the Errata section of that title. Any existing errata can be viewed by selecting your title from http://www.packtpub.com/support.

Piracy

Piracy of copyright material on the Internet is an ongoing problem across all media. At Packt, we take the protection of our copyright and licenses very seriously. If you come across any illegal copies of our works, in any form, on the Internet, please provide us with the location address or website name immediately so that we can pursue a remedy.

Please contact us at <[e-mail]> with a link to the suspected pirated material.

We appreciate your help in protecting our authors, and our ability to bring you valuable content.

Questions

You can contact us at <[e-mail]> if you are having a problem with any aspect of the book, and we will do our best to address it.