To get the most out of this book

The basic requirement is installing Node.js and having a programmer-oriented text editor. The editor need not be anything fancy; even vi/vim will do in a pinch. We will show you how to install everything that's needed, and it's all open source, so there's no barrier to entry.

The most important tool is the one between your ears, and we aren't referring to ear wax.

Every piece of software concerned is readily available. For C/C++ compilers on Windows and macOS, you will need to get either Visual Studio (Windows) or Xcode (macOS), but both are freely available.

It will be helpful to have some experience with JavaScript programming. It is a fairly easy language to learn if you are already experienced with other programming languages.

Download the example code files

While we aim to have identical code snippets in the book and in the repository, there are going to be minor differences in some places. The repository may contain comments, debugging statements, or alternate implementations (commented-out) that are not shown in the book.

You can download the example code files for this book from your account at www.packt.com. If you purchased this book elsewhere, you can visit www.packtpub.com/support and register to have the files emailed directly to you.

You can download the code files by following these steps:

1. Log in or register at www.packt.com.
2. Select the Support tab.
3. Click on Code Downloads.
4. Enter the name of the book in the Search box and follow the onscreen instructions.

Once the file is downloaded, please make sure that you unzip or extract the folder using the latest version of:

• WinRAR/7-Zip for Windows
• Zipeg/iZip/UnRarX for Mac
• 7-Zip/PeaZip for Linux

The code bundle for the book is also hosted on GitHub at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/Node.js-Web-Development-Fifth-Edition. In case there's an update to the code, it will be updated on the existing GitHub repository.

We also have other code bundles from our rich catalog of books and videos available at https://github.com/PacktPublishing/. Check them out!

Conventions used

There are a number of text conventions used throughout this book.

CodeInText: Indicates code words in text, database table names, folder names, filenames, file extensions, pathnames, dummy URLs, user input, and Twitter handles. Here is an example: "Start by changing package.json to have the following scripts section."

A block of code is set as follows:

function readFile(filename) {
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    fs.readFile(filename, (err, data) => {
      if (err) reject(err);
      else resolve(data);
    });
  });
}

When we wish to draw your attention to a particular part of a code block, the relevant lines or items are set in bold:

function asyncFunction(arg1, arg2) { 
  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => { 
    // perform some task or computation that's asynchronous 
    // for any error detected: 
    if (errorDetected) return reject(dataAboutError); 
    // When the task is finished 
    resolve(theResult); 
  }); 
};

Any command-line input or output is written as follows:

$ mkdir notes
$ cd notes

Bold: Indicates a new term, an important word, or words that you see onscreen. For example, words in menus or dialog boxes appear in the text like this. Here is an example: "Click on the Submit button."