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What Is ExpressJS?

According to the officials ExpressJS Website, Express is a Fast, unopinionated, minimalist web framework for Node.js

Why Use ExpressJS?

Here are some of the features of express

  • Web Applications
    • Express is a minimal and flexible Node.js web application framework that provides a robust set of features for web and mobile applications.
  • APIs
    • With a myriad of HTTP utility methods and middleware at your disposal, creating a robust API is quick and easy.
  • Performance
    • Express provides a thin layer of fundamental web application features, without obscuring Node.js features that you know and love.
  • Frameworks

Getting Started

We will need ot create a new folder that will host our express app. We will also need to install afew packages.

create a new folder and cd into it

mkdir express-app && cd express-app

Initialize the project with npm init

npm init -y

Install these packages with npm

npm install express cors dotenv

We will also use apackage called nodemon to restart our app when we make file changes

npm install -D nodemon

Creating a Server

Creating a server is as simple as creating a file called server.js and adding the following code to it.

const express = require("express");const cors = require("cors");require("dotenv").config();const app = express();app.use(cors());app.use(express.json());app.use(express.urlencoded({ extended: true }));app.get("/", (req, res) => {    res.send("Hello World!");});app.listen(process.env.PORT || 3000, () => {    console.log(`Server started on port ${process.env.PORT || 3000}`);});

Now If we visit the app in our browser at https://localhost:3000, we will see the following output

Hello World!