The http Module

Part of the Express Basics section of Coddy's Node.js journey. Lesson 2 of 23.

Express does work for you that you cannot see. Node's own node:http module, which Express is built on, shows it.

import http from 'node:http';

const server = http.createServer((req, res) => {
    if (req.url === '/repairs') {
        res.statusCode = 503;
        res.end('Repairs are closed today');
        return;
    }
    res.end('Welcome to the bike shop');
});

server.listen(3000);

Node calls the function for every request. There are no routes: you compare req.url, the path that was asked for, yourself. res.statusCode is the status code, a number that says how it went: 200 means OK, 404 means not found. res.end sends the body and finishes the response, so set the status before it.

Challenge

Easy

Before going further with Express, you write a tiny server with Node's own node:http module, to see the work Express does for you.

In server.js, inside the function given to http.createServer, look at req.url. When it is /, send the text Home.
For every other path, set the status code to 404 and send the text Not found. Set the status before you send. Once the response has ended, its status cannot change.

Try it: Press Run and send /. You should see Home with status 200. Send /nope, then /recipes/today. Both should show Not found with status 404. In lesson 1, Express sent this 404 for you; here you write it yourself.

Try it yourself

import http from 'node:http';

const server = http.createServer((req, res) => {
    // Answer / with Home, and every other path with 404 Not found.
    res.end('Hello from Node');
});

server.listen(3000, () => {
    console.log('Listening on port 3000');
});