forked from visionmedia/masteringnode
/
book.html
780 lines (539 loc) · 34.3 KB
/
book.html
1
2
3
4
5
6
7
8
9
10
11
12
13
14
15
16
17
18
19
20
21
22
23
24
25
26
27
28
29
30
31
32
33
34
35
36
37
38
39
40
41
42
43
44
45
46
47
48
49
50
51
52
53
54
55
56
57
58
59
60
61
62
63
64
65
66
67
68
69
70
71
72
73
74
75
76
77
78
79
80
81
82
83
84
85
86
87
88
89
90
91
92
93
94
95
96
97
98
99
100
101
102
103
104
105
106
107
108
109
110
111
112
113
114
115
116
117
118
119
120
121
122
123
124
125
126
127
128
129
130
131
132
133
134
135
136
137
138
139
140
141
142
143
144
145
146
147
148
149
150
151
152
153
154
155
156
157
158
159
160
161
162
163
164
165
166
167
168
169
170
171
172
173
174
175
176
177
178
179
180
181
182
183
184
185
186
187
188
189
190
191
192
193
194
195
196
197
198
199
200
201
202
203
204
205
206
207
208
209
210
211
212
213
214
215
216
217
218
219
220
221
222
223
224
225
226
227
228
229
230
231
232
233
234
235
236
237
238
239
240
241
242
243
244
245
246
247
248
249
250
251
252
253
254
255
256
257
258
259
260
261
262
263
264
265
266
267
268
269
270
271
272
273
274
275
276
277
278
279
280
281
282
283
284
285
286
287
288
289
290
291
292
293
294
295
296
297
298
299
300
301
302
303
304
305
306
307
308
309
310
311
312
313
314
315
316
317
318
319
320
321
322
323
324
325
326
327
328
329
330
331
332
333
334
335
336
337
338
339
340
341
342
343
344
345
346
347
348
349
350
351
352
353
354
355
356
357
358
359
360
361
362
363
364
365
366
367
368
369
370
371
372
373
374
375
376
377
378
379
380
381
382
383
384
385
386
387
388
389
390
391
392
393
394
395
396
397
398
399
400
401
402
403
404
405
406
407
408
409
410
411
412
413
414
415
416
417
418
419
420
421
422
423
424
425
426
427
428
429
430
431
432
433
434
435
436
437
438
439
440
441
442
443
444
445
446
447
448
449
450
451
452
453
454
455
456
457
458
459
460
461
462
463
464
465
466
467
468
469
470
471
472
473
474
475
476
477
478
479
480
481
482
483
484
485
486
487
488
489
490
491
492
493
494
495
496
497
498
499
500
501
502
503
504
505
506
507
508
509
510
511
512
513
514
515
516
517
518
519
520
521
522
523
524
525
526
527
528
529
530
531
532
533
534
535
536
537
538
539
540
541
542
543
544
545
546
547
548
549
550
551
552
553
554
555
556
557
558
559
560
561
562
563
564
565
566
567
568
569
570
571
572
573
574
575
576
577
578
579
580
581
582
583
584
585
586
587
588
589
590
591
592
593
594
595
596
597
598
599
600
601
602
603
604
605
606
607
608
609
610
611
612
613
614
615
616
617
618
619
620
621
622
623
624
625
626
627
628
629
630
631
632
633
634
635
636
637
638
639
640
641
642
643
644
645
646
647
648
649
650
651
652
653
654
655
656
657
658
659
660
661
662
663
664
665
666
667
668
669
670
671
672
673
674
675
676
677
678
679
680
681
682
683
684
685
686
687
688
689
690
691
692
693
694
695
696
697
698
699
700
701
702
703
704
705
706
707
708
709
710
711
712
713
714
715
716
717
718
719
720
721
722
723
724
725
726
727
728
729
730
731
732
733
734
735
736
737
738
739
740
741
742
743
744
745
746
747
748
749
750
751
752
753
754
755
756
757
758
759
760
761
762
763
764
765
766
767
768
769
770
771
772
773
774
775
776
777
778
779
780
<html>
<head>
<title>Mastering Node</title>
<style>
body {
font: 14px/1.4 "Lucida Grande", "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif;
padding: 50px 180px;
}
h1 {
padding-left: 5px;
border-bottom: 3px solid #eee;
}
pre {
margin: 15px 0;
padding: 15px;
border: 1px solid #eee;
}
a {
color: #00aaff;
}
</style><div class='mp'>
<h1>Mastering Node</h1>
<p><a href="http://nodejs.org/">Node</a> is an exciting new platform developed by <em>Ryan Dahl</em>, allowing JavaScript developers to create extremely high performance servers by leveraging <a href="http://code.google.com/p/v8/">Google's V8</a> JavaScript engine, and asynchronous I/O. In <em>Mastering Node</em> we will discover how to write high concurrency web servers, utilizing the CommonJS module system, node's core libraries, third party modules, high level web development and more.</p>
</div>
<div class='mp'>
<h1>Installing Node</h1>
<p>In this chapter we will be looking at the installation and compilation of node. Although there are several ways we may install node, we will be looking at <a href="http://github.com/mxcl/homebrew">homebrew</a>, <a href="http://github.com/visionmedia/ndistro">nDistro</a>, and the most flexible method of course, compiling from source.</p>
<h3 id="Homebrew">Homebrew</h3>
<p>Homebrew is a package management system for <em>OSX</em> written in Ruby, is extremely well adopted, and easy to use. To install node via the <code>brew</code> executable simply run:</p>
<pre><code>$ brew install node.js
</code></pre>
<h2 id="nDistro">nDistro</h2>
<p><a href="http://github.com/visionmedia/ndistro">nDistro</a> is a distribution toolkit for node, which allows creation and installation of node distros within seconds. An <em>nDistro</em> is simply a dotfile named <em>.ndistro</em> which defines
module and node binary version dependencies. In the example
below we specify the node binary version <em>0.1.102</em>, as well as
several 3rd party modules.</p>
<pre><code>node 0.1.102
module senchalabs connect
module visionmedia express 1.0.0beta2
module visionmedia connect-form
module visionmedia connect-redis
module visionmedia jade
module visionmedia ejs
</code></pre>
<p>Any machine that can run a shell script can install distributions, and keeps dependencies defined to a single directory structure, making it easy to maintain an deploy. nDistro uses <a href="http://github.com/visionmedia/nodes">pre-compiled node binaries</a> making them extremely fast to install, and module tarballs which are fetched from <a href="http://github.com">GitHub</a> via <em>wget</em> or <em>curl</em> (auto detected).</p>
<p>To get started we first need to install nDistro itself, below we <em>cd</em> to our bin directory of choice, <em>curl</em> the shell script, and pipe the response to <em>sh</em> which will install nDistro to the current directory:</p>
<pre><code>$ cd /usr/local/bin && curl http://github.com/visionmedia/ndistro/raw/master/install | sh
</code></pre>
<p>Next we can place the contents of our example in <em>./.ndistro</em>, and execute <em>ndistro</em> with no arguments, prompting the program to load the config, and start installing:</p>
<pre><code>$ ndistro
</code></pre>
<p>Installation of the example took less than 17 seconds on my machine, and outputs the following <em>stdout</em> indicating success, not bad for an entire stack!</p>
<pre><code>... installing node-0.1.102-i386
... installing connect
... installing express 1.0.0beta2
... installing bin/express
... installing connect-form
... installing connect-redis
... installing jade
... installing bin/jade
... installing ejs
... installation complete
</code></pre>
<h2 id="Building-From-Source">Building From Source</h2>
<p>To build and install node from source, we first need to obtain the code. The first method of doing so is
via <code>git</code>, if you have git installed you can execute:</p>
<pre><code>$ git clone http://github.com/ry/node.git && cd node
</code></pre>
<p>For those without <em>git</em>, or who prefer not to use it, we can also download the source via <em>curl</em>, <em>wget</em>, or similar:</p>
<pre><code>$ curl -# http://nodejs.org/dist/node-v0.1.99.tar.gz > node.tar.gz
$ tar -zxf node.tar.gz
</code></pre>
<p>Now that we have the source on our machine, we can run <code>./configure</code> which discovers which libraries are available for node to utilize such as <em>OpenSSL</em> for transport security support, C and C++ compilers, etc. <code>make</code> which builds node, and finally <code>make install</code> which will install node.</p>
<pre><code>$ ./configure && make && make install
</code></pre>
</div>
<div class='mp'>
<h1>CommonJS Module System</h1>
<p><a href="http://commonjs.org">CommonJS</a> is a community driven effort to standardize packaging of JavaScript libraries, known as <em>modules</em>. Modules written which comply to this standard provide portability between other compliant frameworks such as narwhal, and in some cases even browsers.</p>
<p>Although this is ideal, in practice modules are often not portable due to relying on apis that are currently only provided by, or are tailored to node specifically. As the framework matures, and additional standards emerge our modules will become more portable.</p>
<h2 id="Creating-Modules">Creating Modules</h2>
<p>Lets create a utility module named <em>utils</em>, which will contain a <code>merge()</code> function to copy the properties of one object to another. Typically in a browser, or environment without CommonJS module support, this may look similar to below, where <code>utils</code> is a global variable.</p>
<pre><code>var utils = {};
utils.merge = function(obj, other) {};
</code></pre>
<p>Although namespacing can lower the chance of collisions, it can still become an issue, and when further namespacing is applied it can look flat-out silly. CommonJS modules aid in removing this issue by "wrapping" the contents of a JavaScript file with a closure similar to what is shown below, however more pseudo globals are available to the module in addition to <code>exports</code>, <code>require</code>, and <code>module</code>. The <code>exports</code> object is then returned when a user invokes <code>require('utils')</code>.</p>
<pre><code>var module = { exports: {}};
(function(module, exports){
function merge(){};
exports.merge = merge;
})(module, module.exports);
</code></pre>
<p>First create the file <em>./utils.js</em>, and define the <code>merge()</code> function as seen below. The implied anonymous wrapper function shown above allows us to seemingly define globals, however these are not accessible until exported.</p>
<pre><code> function merge(obj, other) {
var keys = Object.keys(other);
for (var i = 0, len = keys.length; i < len; ++i) {
var key = keys[i];
obj[key] = other[key];
}
return obj;
};
exports.merge = merge;
</code></pre>
<p>The typical pattern for public properties is to simply define them
on the <code>exports</code> object like so:</p>
<pre><code>exports.merge = function(obj, other) {
var keys = Object.keys(other);
for (var i = 0, len = keys.length; i < len; ++i) {
var key = keys[i];
obj[key] = other[key];
}
return obj;
};
</code></pre>
<p>Next we will look at utilizing out new module in other libraries.</p>
<h2 id="Requiring-Modules">Requiring Modules</h2>
<p>There are four main ways to require a module in node, first is the <em>synchronous</em> method, which simply returns the module's exports, second is the <em>asynchronous</em> method which accepts a callback, third is the <em>asynchronous http</em> method which can load remote modules, and lastly is requiring of shared libraries or "node addons" which we will cover later.</p>
<p>To get started create a second file named <em>./app.js</em> with the code shown below. The first line <code>require('./utils')</code> fetches the contents of <em>./utils.js</em> and returns the <code>exports</code> of which we later utilize our <code>merge()</code> method and display the results of our merged object using <code>console.dir()</code>.</p>
<pre><code>var utils = require('./utils');
var a = { one: 1 };
var b = { two: 2 };
utils.merge(a, b);
console.dir(a);
</code></pre>
<p>Core modules such as the <em>sys</em> which are bundled with node can be required without a path, such as <code>require('sys')</code>, however 3rd-party modules will iterate the <code>require.paths</code> array in search of a module matching the given path. By default <code>require.paths</code> includes <em>~/.node_libraries</em>, so if <em>~/.node_libraries</em>/utils.js_ exists we may simply <code>require('utils')</code>, instead of our relative example <code>require('./utils')</code> shown above.</p>
<p>Node also supports the concept of <em>index</em> JavaScript files. To illustrate this example lets create a <em>math</em> module that will provide the <code>math.add()</code>, and <code>math.sub()</code> methods. For organizational purposes we will keep each method in their respective <em>./math/add.js</em> and <em>./math/sub.js</em> files. So where does <em>index.js</em> come into play? we can populate <em>./math/index.js</em> with the code shown below, which is used when <code>require('./math')</code> is invoked, which is conceptually identical to invoking <code>require('./math/index')</code>.</p>
<pre><code>module.exports = {
add: require('./add'),
sub: require('./sub')
};
</code></pre>
<p>The contents of <em>./math/add.js</em> show us a new technique, here we use <code>module.exports</code> instead of <code>exports</code>. Previously mentioned was the fact that <code>exports</code> is not the only object exposed to the module file when evaluated, we also have access to <code>__dirname</code>, <code>__filename</code>, and <code>module</code> which represents the current module. Here we simply define the module export object to a new object, which happens to be a function.</p>
<pre><code>module.exports = function add(a, b){
return a + b;
};
</code></pre>
<p>This technique is usually only helpful when your module has one aspect that it wishes to expose, be it a single function, constructor, string, etc. Below is an example of how we could provide the <code>Animal</code> constructor:</p>
<pre><code>exports.Animal = function Animal(){};
</code></pre>
<p>which can then be utilized as shown:</p>
<pre><code>var Animal = require('./animal').Animal;
</code></pre>
<p>if we change our module slightly, we can remove <code>.Animal</code>:</p>
<pre><code>module.exports = function Animal(){};
</code></pre>
<p>which can now be used without the property:</p>
<pre><code>var Animal = require('./animal');
</code></pre>
<h2 id="Require-Paths">Require Paths</h2>
<p>We talked about <code>require.paths</code>, the <code>Array</code> utilized by node's module system in order to discover modules. By default node checks the following directories for modules:</p>
<ul>
<li><code><node binary></code>/../../lib/node</li>
<li><strong>$HOME</strong>/.node_libraries</li>
<li><strong>$NODE_PATH</strong></li>
</ul>
<p>The <strong>NODE_PATH</strong> environment variable is much like <strong>PATH</strong>, as it allows several paths delimited by the colon (<code>:</code>) character.</p>
<h3 id="Runtime-Manipulation">Runtime Manipulation</h3>
<p>Since <code>require.paths</code> is just an array, we can manipulate it at runtime in order to expose libraries. In our previous example we defined the libraries <em>./math/{add,sub}.js</em>, in which we would typically <code>require('./math')</code> or <code>require('./math/add')</code> etc. Another approach is to prepend or "unshift" a directory onto <code>require.paths</code> as shown below, after which we can simply <code>require('add')</code> since node will iterate the paths in order to try and locate the module.</p>
<pre><code>require.paths.unshift(__dirname + '/math');
var add = require('add'),
sub = require('sub');
console.log(add(1,2));
console.log(sub(1,2));
</code></pre>
<h2 id="Pseudo-Globals">Pseudo Globals</h2>
<p>As mentioned above, modules have several pseudo globals available to them, these are as follows:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>require</code> the require function itself</li>
<li><code>module</code> the current <code>Module</code> instance</li>
<li><code>exports</code> the current module's exported properties</li>
<li><code>__filename</code> absolute path to the current module's file</li>
<li><code>__dirname</code> absolute path to the current module's directory</li>
</ul>
<h3 id="require-">require()</h3>
<p>Although not obvious at first glance, the <code>require()</code> function is actually
re-defined for the current module, and calls an internal function <code>loadModule</code> with a reference to the current <code>Module</code> to resolve relative paths and to populate <code>module.parent</code>.</p>
<h3 id="module">module</h3>
<p>When we <code>require()</code> a module, typically we only deal with the module's <code>exports</code>, however the <code>module</code> variable references the current module's <code>Module</code> instance. This is why the following is valid, as we may re-assign the module's <code>exports</code> to any object, even something trivial like a string:</p>
<pre><code>// css.js
module.exports = 'body { background: blue; }';
</code></pre>
<p>To obtain this string we would simply <code>require('./css')</code>. The <code>module</code> object also contains these useful properties:</p>
<ul>
<li><code>id</code> the module's id, consisting of a path. Ex: <code>./app</code></li>
<li><code>parent</code> the parent <code>Module</code> (which required this one) or <code>undefined</code></li>
<li><code>filename</code> absolute path to the module</li>
<li><code>moduleCache</code> an object containing references to all cached modules</li>
</ul>
<h2 id="Asynchronous-Require">Asynchronous Require</h2>
<p>Node provides us with an asynchronous version of <code>require()</code>, aptly named <code>require.async()</code>. Below is the sample example previously shown for our <em>utils</em> module, however non blocking. <code>require.async()</code> accepts a callback of which the first parameter <code>err</code> is <code>null</code> or an instanceof <code>Error</code>, and then the module exports. Passing the error (if there is one) as the first argument is an extremely common idiom in node for async routines.</p>
<pre><code>require.async('./utils', function(err, utils){
console.dir(utils.merge({ foo: 'bar' }, { bar: 'baz' }));
});
</code></pre>
<h2 id="Requiring-Over-HTTP">Requiring Over HTTP</h2>
<p>Asynchronous requires in node also have the added bonus of allowing module loading via <strong>HTTP</strong> and <strong>HTTPS</strong>.
To require a module via http all we have to do is pass a valid url as shown in the <em>sass</em> to <em>css</em> compilation example below:</p>
<pre><code>var sassUrl = 'http://github.com/visionmedia/sass.js/raw/master/lib/sass.js',
sassStr = ''
+ 'body\n'
+ ' a\n'
+ ' :color #eee';
require.async(sassUrl, function(err, sass){
var str = sass.render(sassStr);
console.log(str);
});
</code></pre>
<p>Outputs:</p>
<pre><code>body a {
color: #eee;}
</code></pre>
<h2 id="Registering-Module-Compilers">Registering Module Compilers</h2>
<p>Another cool feature that node provides us, is the ability to register compilers for a specific file extension. A good example of this is the CoffeeScript language, which is a ruby/python inspired language compiling to vanilla JavaScript, and through the use of <code>require.registerExtension()</code> can do so in an automated fashion.</p>
<p>To illustrate it's usage, lets create a small (and useless) Extended JavaScript language, or "ejs" for our example which will live at <em>./compiler/example.ejs</em>, it's syntax will look like this:</p>
<pre><code>::min(a, b) a < b ? a : b
::max(a, b) a > b ? a : b
</code></pre>
<p>which will be compiled to:</p>
<pre><code>exports.min = function min(a, b) { return a < b ? a : b }
exports.max = function max(a, b) { return a > b ? a : b }
</code></pre>
<p>First lets create the module that will actually be doing the ejs to JavaScript compilation. In this example it is located at <em>./compiler/extended.js</em>, and exports a single method named <code>compile()</code>. This method accepts a string, which is the raw contents of what node is requiring, transformed to vanilla JavaScript via regular expressions.</p>
<pre><code>exports.compile = function(str){
return str
.replace(/(\w+)\(/g, '$1 = function $1(')
.replace(/\)(.+?)\n/g, '){ return $1 }\n')
.replace(/::/g, 'exports.');
};
</code></pre>
<p>Next we have to "register" the extension to assign out compiler. As previously mentioned our compiler lives at <em>./compiler/extended.js</em> so we are requiring it in, and passing the <code>compile()</code> method to <code>require.registerExtension()</code> which simply expects a function accepting a string, and returning a string of JavaScript.</p>
<pre><code>require.registerExtension('.ejs', require('./compiler/extended').compile);
</code></pre>
<p>Now when we require our example, the ".ejs" extension is detected, and will pass the contents through our compiler, and everything works as expected.</p>
<pre><code>var example = require('./compiler/example');
console.dir(example)
console.log(example.min(2, 3));
console.log(example.max(10, 8));
// => { min: [Function], max: [Function] }
// => 2
// => 10
</code></pre>
</div>
<div class='mp'>
<h1>Globals</h1>
<p> As we have learnt node's module system discourages the use of globals, however node provides a few important globals for use to utilize. The first and most important is the <code>process</code> global which exposes process manipulation such as signalling, exiting, the process id (pid), and more. Other globals help drive to be similar to other familiar JavaScript environments such as the browser, by providing a <code>console</code> object.</p>
<h2 id="console">console</h2>
<p>The <code>console</code> object contains several methods which are used to output information to <em>stdout</em> or <em>stderr</em>. Lets take a look at what each method does.</p>
<h3 id="console-log-">console.log()</h3>
<p>The most frequently used console method is <code>console.log()</code> simply writing to <em>stdout</em> with a line feed (<code>\n</code>). Currently aliased as <code>console.info()</code>.</p>
<pre><code>console.log('wahoo');
// => wahoo
console.log({ foo: 'bar' });
// => [object Object]
</code></pre>
<h3 id="console-error-">console.error()</h3>
<p>Identical to <code>console.log()</code>, however writes to <em>stderr</em>. Aliased as <code>console.warn()</code> as well.</p>
<pre><code>console.error('database connection failed');
</code></pre>
<h3 id="console-dir-">console.dir()</h3>
<p>Utilizes the <em>sys</em> module's <code>inspect()</code> method to pretty-print the object to
<em>stdout</em>.</p>
<pre><code>console.dir({ foo: 'bar' });
// => { foo: 'bar' }
</code></pre>
<h3 id="console-assert-">console.assert()</h3>
<p>Asserts that the given expression is truthy, or throws an exception.</p>
<pre><code>console.assert(connected, 'Database connection failed');
</code></pre>
<h2 id="process">process</h2>
<p>The <code>process</code> object is plastered with goodies, first we will take a look
at some properties that provide information about the node process itself.</p>
<h3 id="process-version">process.version</h3>
<p>The version property contains the node version string, for example "v0.1.103".</p>
<h3 id="process-installPrefix">process.installPrefix</h3>
<p>Exposes the installation prefix, in my case "<em>/usr/local</em>", as node's binary was installed to "<em>/usr/local/bin/node</em>".</p>
<h3 id="process-execPath">process.execPath</h3>
<p>Path to the executable itself "<em>/usr/local/bin/node</em>".</p>
<h3 id="process-platform">process.platform</h3>
<p>Exposes a string indicating the platform you are running on, for example "darwin".</p>
<h3 id="process-pid">process.pid</h3>
<p>The process id.</p>
<h3 id="process-cwd-">process.cwd()</h3>
<p>Returns the current working directory, for example:</p>
<pre><code>cd ~ && node
node> process.cwd()
"/Users/tj"
</code></pre>
<h3 id="process-chdir-">process.chdir()</h3>
<p>Changes the current working directory to the path passed.</p>
<pre><code>process.chdir('/foo');
</code></pre>
<h3 id="process-getuid-">process.getuid()</h3>
<p>Returns the numerical user id of the running process.</p>
<h3 id="process-setuid-">process.setuid()</h3>
<p>Sets the effective user id for the running process. This method accepts both a numerical id, as well as a string. For example both <code>process.setuid(501)</code>, and <code>process.setuid('tj')</code> are valid.</p>
<h3 id="process-getgid-">process.getgid()</h3>
<p>Returns the numerical group id of the running process.</p>
<h3 id="process-setgid-">process.setgid()</h3>
<p>Similar to <code>process.setuid()</code> however operates on the group, also accepting a numerical value or string representation. For example <code>process.setgid(20)</code> or <code>process.setgid('www')</code>.</p>
<h3 id="process-env">process.env</h3>
<p>An object containing the user's environment variables, for example:</p>
<pre><code>{ PATH: '/Users/tj/.gem/ruby/1.8/bin:/Users/tj/.nvm/current/bin:/usr/bin:/bin:/usr/sbin:/sbin:/usr/local/bin:/usr/X11/bin'
, PWD: '/Users/tj/ebooks/masteringnode'
, EDITOR: 'mate'
, LANG: 'en_CA.UTF-8'
, SHLVL: '1'
, HOME: '/Users/tj'
, LOGNAME: 'tj'
, DISPLAY: '/tmp/launch-YCkT03/org.x:0'
, _: '/usr/local/bin/node'
, OLDPWD: '/Users/tj'
}
</code></pre>
<h3 id="process-argv">process.argv</h3>
<p>When executing a file with the <code>node</code> executable <code>process.argv</code> provides access to the argument vector, the first value being the node executable, second being the filename, and remaining values being the arguments passed.</p>
<p>For example our source file <em>./src/process/misc.js</em> can be executed by running:</p>
<pre><code>$ node src/process/misc.js foo bar baz
</code></pre>
<p>in which we call <code>console.dir(process.argv)</code>, outputting the following:</p>
<pre><code>[ 'node'
, '/Users/tj/EBooks/masteringnode/src/process/misc.js'
, 'foo'
, 'bar'
, 'baz'
]
</code></pre>
<h3 id="process-exit-">process.exit()</h3>
<p>The <code>process.exit()</code> method is synonymous with the C function <code>exit()</code>, in which a exit code > 0 is passed indicating failure, or 0 to indicate success. When invoked the <em>exit</em> event is emitted, allowing a short time for arbitrary processing to occur before <code>process.reallyExit()</code> is called with the given status code.</p>
<h3 id="process-on-">process.on()</h3>
<p>The process itself is an <code>EventEmitter</code>, allowing you to do things like listen for uncaught exceptions, via the <em>uncaughtException</em> event:</p>
<pre><code>process.on('uncaughtException', function(err){
console.log('got an error: %s', err.message);
process.exit(1);
});
setTimeout(function(){
throw new Error('fail');
}, 100);
</code></pre>
<h3 id="process-kill-">process.kill()</h3>
<p><code>process.kill()</code> method sends the signal passed to the given <em>pid</em>, defaulting to <strong>SIGINT</strong>. In our example below we send the <strong>SIGTERM</strong> signal to the same node process to illustrate signal trapping, after which we output "terminating" and exit. Note that our second timeout of 1000 milliseconds is never reached.</p>
<pre><code>process.on('SIGTERM', function(){
console.log('terminating');
process.exit(1);
});
setTimeout(function(){
console.log('sending SIGTERM to process %d', process.pid);
process.kill(process.pid, 'SIGTERM');
}, 500);
setTimeout(function(){
console.log('never called');
}, 1000);
</code></pre>
<h3 id="errno">errno</h3>
<p>The <code>process</code> object is host of the error numbers, these reference what you would find in C-land, for example <code>process.EPERM</code> represents a permission based error, while <code>process.ENOENT</code> represents a missing file or directory. Typically these are used within bindings to bridge the gap between c++ and JavaScript, however useful for handling exceptions as well:</p>
<pre><code>if (err.errno === process.ENOENT) {
// Display a 404 "Not Found" page
} else {
// Display a 500 "Internal Server Error" page
}
</code></pre>
</div>
<div class='mp'>
<h1>Events</h1>
<p> Events are crucial to node, and used greatly throughout core and 3rd-party modules. Node's core library <em>events</em> supplies us with a single constructor, <em>EventEmitter</em>.</p>
<h2 id="Emitting-Events">Emitting Events</h2>
<p>Typically an object inherits from <em>EventEmitter</em>, however our small example below illustrates the api. First we create an <code>emitter</code>, after which we can define any number of callbacks using the <code>emitter.on()</code> method which accepts the <em>name</em> of the event, and arbitrary objects passed as data. When <code>emitter.emit()</code> is called we are only required to pass the event <em>name</em>, followed by any number of arguments, in this case the <code>first</code> and <code>last</code> name strings.</p>
<pre><code>var EventEmitter = require('events').EventEmitter;
var emitter = new EventEmitter;
emitter.on('name', function(first, last){
console.log(first + ', ' + last);
});
emitter.emit('name', 'tj', 'holowaychuk');
emitter.emit('name', 'simon', 'holowaychuk');
</code></pre>
<h2 id="Inheriting-From-EventEmitter">Inheriting From EventEmitter</h2>
<p>A perhaps more practical use of <code>EventEmitter</code>, and commonly used throughout node is to inherit from it. This means we can leave <code>EventEmitter</code>'s prototype untouched, while utilizing it's api for our own means of world domination!</p>
<p>To do so we begin by defining the <code>Dog</code> constructor, which of course will bark from time to time, also known as an <em>event</em>. Our <code>Dog</code> constructor accepts a <code>name</code>, followed by <code>EventEmitter.call(this)</code>, which invokes the <code>EventEmitter</code> function in context to the given argument. Doing this is essentially the same as a "super" or "parent" call in languages that support classes. This is a crucial step, as it allows <code>EventEmitter</code> to set up the <code>_events</code> property which it utilizes internally to manage callbacks.</p>
<pre><code>var EventEmitter = require('events').EventEmitter;
function Dog(name) {
this.name = name;
EventEmitter.call(this);
}
</code></pre>
<p>Here we inherit from <code>EventEmitter</code>, so that we may use the methods provided such as <code>EventEmitter#on()</code> and <code>EventEmitter#emit()</code>. If the <code>__proto__</code> property is throwing you off, no worries! we will be touching on this later.</p>
<pre><code>Dog.prototype.__proto__ = EventEmitter.prototype;
</code></pre>
<p>Now that we have our <code>Dog</code> set up, we can create .... simon! When simon barks we can let <em>stdout</em> know by calling <code>console.log()</code> within the callback. The callback it-self is called in context to the object, aka <code>this</code>.</p>
<pre><code>var simon = new Dog('simon');
simon.on('bark', function(){
console.log(this.name + ' barked');
});
</code></pre>
<p>Bark twice a second:</p>
<pre><code>setInterval(function(){
simon.emit('bark');
}, 500);
</code></pre>
<h2 id="Removing-Event-Listeners">Removing Event Listeners</h2>
<p>As we have seen event listeners are simply functions which are called when we <code>emit()</code> an event. Although not seen often we can remove these listeners by calling the <code>removeListener(type, callback)</code> method. In the example below we emit the <em>message</em> "foo bar" every <code>300</code> milliseconds, which has the callback of <code>console.log()</code>. After 1000 milliseconds we call <code>removeListener()</code> with the same arguments that we passed to <code>on()</code> originally. To compliment this method is <code>removeAllListeners(type)</code> which removes all listeners associated to the given <em>type</em>.</p>
<pre><code>var EventEmitter = require('events').EventEmitter;
var emitter = new EventEmitter;
emitter.on('message', console.log);
setInterval(function(){
emitter.emit('message', 'foo bar');
}, 300);
setTimeout(function(){
emitter.removeListener('message', console.log);
}, 1000);
</code></pre>
</div>
<div class='mp'>
<h1>Buffers</h1>
<p> To handle binary data, node provides us the <code>Buffer</code> object. Buffer instances represent memory allocated independently to that of V8's heap. There are several ways to constructor a <code>Buffer</code> instance, and many ways you can manipulate it's data.</p>
<p>The simplest way to construct a <code>Buffer</code> from a string is to simply pass a string as the first argument. As you can see by the log output, we now have a buffer object containing 5 bytes of data represented in hexadecimal.</p>
<pre><code>var hello = new Buffer('Hello');
console.log(hello);
// => <Buffer 48 65 6c 6c 6f>
console.log(hello.toString());
// => "Hello"
</code></pre>
<p>By default the encoding is "utf8", however this can be specified by passing as string as the second argument. The ellipsis below for example will be printed to stdout as the '&' character when in "ascii" encoding.</p>
<pre><code>var buf = new Buffer('…');
console.log(buf.toString());
// => …
var buf = new Buffer('…', 'ascii');
console.log(buf.toString());
// => &
</code></pre>
<p>An alternative method is to pass an array of integers representing the octet stream, however in this case functionality equivalent.</p>
<pre><code>var hello = new Buffer([0x48, 0x65, 0x6c, 0x6c, 0x6f]);
</code></pre>
<p>Buffers can also be created with an integer representing the number of bytes allocated, after which we may call the <code>write()</code> method, providing an optional offset and encoding. As shown below we provide the offset of 2 bytes to our second call to <code>write()</code>, buffering "Hel", and then we continue on to write another two bytes with an offset of 3, completing "Hello".</p>
<pre><code>var buf = new Buffer(5);
buf.write('He');
buf.write('l', 2);
buf.write('lo', 3);
console.log(buf.toString());
// => "Hello"
</code></pre>
<p>The <code>.length</code> property of a buffer instance contains the byte length of the stream, compared to JavaScript strings which will simply return the number of characters. For example the ellipsis character '…' consists of three bytes, however the buffer will respond with the byte length, and not the character length.</p>
<pre><code>var ellipsis = new Buffer('…', 'utf8');
console.log('… string length: %d', '…'.length);
// => … string length: 1
console.log('… byte length: %d', ellipsis.length);
// => … byte length: 3
console.log(ellipsis);
// => <Buffer e2 80 a6>
</code></pre>
<p>When working with JavaScript strings, we can also pass a string through the <code>Buffer.byteLength()</code> method to determine it's byte length.</p>
<p>The api is written in such a way that it is Array-like, so for example we can work with "slices" of a <code>Buffer</code> by passing offsets to the <code>slice()</code> method:</p>
<pre><code>var chunk = buf.slice(4, 9);
console.log(chunk.toString());
// => "some"
</code></pre>
<p>Alternatively when expecting a string we can pass offsets to <code>Buffer#toString()</code>:</p>
<pre><code>var buf = new Buffer('just some data');
console.log(buf.toString('ascii', 4, 9));
// => "some"
</code></pre>
</div>
<div class='mp'>
<h1>Streams</h1>
<p> Streams are an important concept in node. The stream api is a unified way to handle stream-like data, for example data can be streamed to a file, streamed to a socket to respond to an HTTP request, or a stream can be read-only such as reading from <em>stdin</em>. However since we will be touching on stream specifics in later chapters, for now we will concentrate on the api.</p>
<h2 id="Readable-Streams">Readable Streams</h2>
<p> Readable streams such as an HTTP request inherit from <code>EventEmitter</code> in order to expose incoming data through events. The first of these events is the <em>data</em> event, which is an arbitrary chunk of data passed to the event handler as a <code>Buffer</code> instance.</p>
<pre><code>req.on('data', function(buf){
// Do something with the Buffer
});
</code></pre>
<p>As we know, we can call <code>toString()</code> a buffer to return a string representation of the binary data, however in the case of streams if desired we may call <code>setEncoding()</code> on the stream,
after which the <em>data</em> event will emit strings.</p>
<pre><code>req.setEncoding('utf8');
req.on('data', function(str){
// Do something with the String
});
</code></pre>
<p>Another import event is the <em>end</em> event, which represents the ending of <em>data</em> events. For example below we define an HTTP echo server, simply "pumping" the request body data through to the response. So if we <strong>POST</strong> "hello world", our response will be "hello world".</p>
<pre><code>var http = require('http');
http.createServer(function(req, res){
res.writeHead(200);
req.on('data', function(data){
res.write(data);
});
req.on('end', function(){
res.end();
});
}).listen(3000);
</code></pre>
<p>The <em>sys</em> module actually has a function designed specifically for this "pumping" action, aptly named <code>sys.pump()</code>, which accepts a read stream as the first argument, and write stream as the second.</p>
<pre><code>var http = require('http'),
sys = require('sys');
http.createServer(function(req, res){
res.writeHead(200);
sys.pump(req, res);
}).listen(3000);
</code></pre>
</div>
<div class='mp'>
<h1>File System</h1>
<p> ...</p>
</div>
<div class='mp'>
<h1>TCP</h1>
<p> ...</p>
<h2 id="TCP-Servers">TCP Servers</h2>
<p> ...</p>
<h2 id="TCP-Clients">TCP Clients</h2>
<p> ...</p>
</div>
<div class='mp'>
<h1>HTTP</h1>
<p> ...</p>
<h2 id="HTTP-Servers">HTTP Servers</h2>
<p> ...</p>
<h2 id="HTTP-Clients">HTTP Clients</h2>
<p> ...</p>
</div>
<div class='mp'>
<h1>Connect</h1>
<p>Connect is a ...</p>
</div>
<div class='mp'>
<h1>Express</h1>
<p>Express is a ...</p>
</div>
<div class='mp'>
<h1>Testing</h1>
<p> ...</p>
<h2 id="Expresso">Expresso</h2>
<p> ...</p>
<h2 id="Vows">Vows</h2>
<p> ...</p>
</div>
<div class='mp'>
<h1>Deployment</h1>
<p> ...</p>
</div>
</body>
</html>