Node.js is a cross-platform server-side runtime environment developed on Google Chrome's V8 Engine under MIT license. It uses JavaScript to build networking and server-side applications such as real-time chat app, web app, command line app, REST API server etc that runs on macOS, Windows and Linux. According to Stack Overflow, JavaScript is the most popular and preferred language in the developer community throughout the world now. Node.js offers a library of different JavaScript modules which makes the process of building web apps easier to a great extent. As each of the modules has its own environment, it won’t affect the other modules’ global scope. Here is a NodeJS modules’ list that will help you in developing applications effectively in a simple way.
Async
Async, a utility module offers powerful and straightforward functions for employing with asynchronous JavaScript. Even though it is designed to install via npm install async with Node.js, it can also be installed via browser- browser
install
async
, component- component install
caolan
/async
, jam- jam install async and
spm
-
spm
install async
.
It also provides 70 functions, which consists of usual 'functional' suspects such as map, reduce, filter, each etc along with few common patterns such as parallel, series, waterfall etc. for asynchronous control flow.
Express
Express is an open, fast and simple web framework that supports template engines and file uploading and helps to build single page web apps and real-time apps very quickly and easily in Node.js platform. Use npm
install -g express
command if you want to install it globally because it does not come with default modules of Node.js.
It consists of some special features such as the capacity to identify a static file folder which functions as a simple file server. It also offers compact and powerful design for HTTP servers, which saves us from writing a bulk of typical HTTP server code.
Forever
Forever is an effective tool that restarts your Node process if it crashes. If you really don't want your app development process to stop even if it collides, then Forever is the best choice. Forever also allows you to define the time period of your Node process, so that the process will restart before it fails. It stops the auto-failing practices from being restarted repeatedly.
It can be used in two different ways either by incorporating it into the code or using the command line. Forever can be installed as a command line module globally via
npm
install -g forever
. If in case you chose to use Forever programmatically then forever-monitor needs to be installed.
Gulp
Developers who are well versed with JavaScript libraries may have heard about task runner Grunt, which is a tool for automating tasks such as compilation, minification, unit testing and much more. In the same way, Gulp is also a newer JavaScript task runner that performs the same thing with fewer updates. It is a streaming build system that allows developers automate tedious tasks in their workflow with respect to web development.
If you have already installed Node.js and Node Package Manager (NPM) on your system, then Gulp can be installed just by typing command npm
install gulp -g
in the command line interface.
Moment
Moment offers date and time functionality which means you can add, format and alter the date and time as per your requirements. For example, if you are doing some modifications in the database and want to get the created time for that, then it can be done just by changing the "LastModifiedOn" field in the database to "DateCreatedOn".
It is designed in such a way that it can be installed via npm install moment in Node.js platform or can be used directly in the browser. All the unit tests and AII code will run and work in both the environments.
Mongoose
Because of the shared use of JSON, Node.js and MongoDB are frequently used together. Mongoose is a MongoDB object data modeling that allows you to have a quick look at what the data structure is and also solve the common real-world application issues by maintaining the flexibility of MongoDB. Mongoose is designed specifically to run in an asynchronous environment and can be installed via npm install mongoose.
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