Built in Node Js Modules

#javascript #programming #web #beginners

This is a brief post with an example on how to use in-built modules in NodeJs. We're only going to look at a few.

Prerequisite

🥦 Install NodeJs
🥦 Nodejs knowledge is required.

Import and Export modules

Exporting modules

module.exports.<function name> = <function name>
module.exports.sayName = sayName;

Importing modules

const fs = require('fs');

Path module: To handle file paths

Joining file path with files

Ex1.
const path = require('path');
const fileLocation = path.join(__dirname, 'app.js')
console.log(fileLocation);

Ex2.
const path = require('path');
const fileLocation = path.join(__dirname, '../user-model.js')
console.log(fileLocation);

Getting Base name

const path = require('path');
const fileLocation = path.join(__dirname, '../user-model.js')
const fileName = path.basename(fileLocation)
console.log(fileName);

fs module:To handle the file system

const path = require('path');
const fileLocation = path.join(__dirname, '../user-model.js')
const fileName = path.extname(fileLocation)
console.log(fileName);

url module: To parse URL strings

const url = require('url');

const getUrlAddress = 'https://localhost:3003/users?key=abayomi&age=24';
const parsedUrl = url.parse(getUrlAddress, true);
console.log(parsedUrl);
console.log(parsedUrl.href);
console.log(parsedUrl.path);
console.log(parsedUrl.search);
console.log(parsedUrl.port);
console.log(parsedUrl.pathname);
console.log(parsedUrl.query);
console.log(parsedUrl.query.age);

fs module: To handle the file system

Read file

const fs = require('fs');
fs.writeFile('note.txt', 'hey I just wrote my first code', err =>{
  if(err) throw err;
  console.log('File written.....');
})

Read file

const fs = require('fs');
fs.readFile('note.txt', 'utf8', (error, response)=>{
  if(error) throw error;
  console.log(response);
})

http module: To make Node.js act as an HTTP server

const http = require('http');
const server = http.createServer((req,res)=>{
  if(req.url === '/'){
    res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type':'text/html'})
        res.write('<h1> Hey gimme ma money...dude!!</h1>')
        res.end();
  }

});

server.listen(4545, ()=> console.log('Server is crawling.....'));

Ex2

const http = require('http');
const fs = require('fs');

const server = http.createServer((req,res)=>{
  if(req.url === '/'){
    fs.readFile('note.txt', (error, response)=>{
    res.writeHead(200, {'Content-Type':'text/html'})
        res.write(response)
        res.end();
    })
  }

});

server.listen(4545, ()=> console.log('Server is crawling.....'));

Crypto module:To handle OpenSSL cryptographic functions

Ex1. Encrytping
const crypto = require('crypto');

const hashedMessage = crypto.createHash('md5').update('This is our secret').digest('hex')
console.log(hashedMessage);

Ex2. using sha256
const crypto = require('crypto');

const secretKey = 'pinkyandthebrain';
const hashedMessage = crypto.createHmac('sha256', secretKey).update('this is our secret').digest('hex')

console.log(hashedMessage);

Conclusion

This is the most basic thing you can accomplish with NodeJs; there are packages like bcrypt that may be used in place of crypto for hashing, and Express Js for developing server-based APIs. It's essential that we grasp the fundamentals.
To acquire a list of the built modules that aren't included here, such as os and assert, and so on. Click Node Docs for more.
Hope you found this post useful. Thanks for reading.