Mastering Node.js

Sandro Pasquali

• Publisher: Packt Publishing
• Year: 2013
• eBook ISBN: 9781782166337
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Computer Science
• Subtopic: Programming in JavaScript
• Index: Computer Science

This book contains an extensive set of practical examples and an easy-to-follow approach to creating 3D objects.This book is great for anyone who already knows JavaScript and who wants to start creating 3D graphics that run in any browser. You don't need to know anything about advanced math or WebGL; all that is needed is a general knowledge of JavaScript and HTML. The required materials and examples can be freely downloaded and all tools used in this book are open source.

Mastering Node.js

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Table of Contents

Mastering Node.js

Credits

About the Author

Acknowledgments

About the Reviewers

www.PacktPub.com

Support files, eBooks, discount offers and more

Why Subscribe?

Free Access for Packt account holders

Preface

What this book covers

What you need for this book

Who this book is for

Conventions

Reader feedback

Customer support

Errata

Piracy

Questions

1. Understanding the Node Environment

Extending JavaScript

Events

Modularity

The Network

V8

Memory and other limits

Harmony

The process object

The Read-Eval-Print Loop and executing a Node program

Summary

2. Understanding Asynchronous Event-Driven Programming

Broadcasting events

Collaboration

Queueing

Listening for events

Signals

Forks

File events

Deferred execution

process.nextTick

setImmediate

Timers

setTimeout

setInterval

unref and ref

Understanding the event loop

Four sources of truth

Callbacks and errors

Conventions

Know your errors

Building pyramids

Considerations

Listening for file changes

Summary

3. Streaming Data Across Nodes and Clients

Exploring streams

Implementing readable streams

Pushing and pulling

Writable streams

Duplex streams

Transforming streams

Using PassThrough streams

Creating an HTTP server

Making HTTP requests

Proxying and tunneling

HTTPS, TLS (SSL), and securing your server

Creating a self-signed certificate for development

Installing a real SSL certificate

The request object

The URL module

The Querystring module

Working with headers

Using cookies

Understanding content types

Handling favicon requests

Handling POST data

Creating and streaming images with Node

Creating, caching, and sending a PNG representation

Summary

4. Using Node to Access the Filesystem

Directories, and iterating over files and folders

Types of files

File paths

File attributes

Opening and closing files

fs.open(path, flags, [mode], callback)

fs.close(fd, callback)

File operations

fs.rename(oldName, newName, callback)

fs.truncate(path, len, callback)

fs.ftruncate(fd, len, callback)

fs.chown(path, uid, gid, callback)

fs.fchown(fd, uid, gid, callback)

fs.lchown(path, uid, gid, callback)

fs.chmod(path, mode, callback)

fs.fchmod(fd, mode, callback)

fs.lchmod(path, mode, callback)

fs.link(srcPath, dstPath, callback)

fs.symlink(srcPath, dstPath, [type], callback)

fs.readlink(path, callback)

fs.realpath(path, [cache], callback)

fs.unlink(path, callback)

fs.rmdir(path, callback)

fs.mkdir(path, [mode], callback)

fs.exists(path, callback)

fs.fsync(fd, callback)

Synchronicity

Moving through directories

Reading from a file

Reading byte by byte

fs.read(fd, buffer, offset, length, position, callback)

Fetching an entire file at once

fs.readFile(path, [options], callback)

Creating a readable stream

fs.createReadStream(path, [options])

Reading a file line by line

The Readline module

Writing to a file

Writing byte by byte

fs.write(fd, buffer, offset, length, position, callback)

Writing large chunks of data

fs.writeFile(path, data, [options], callback)

fs.appendFile(path, data, [options], callback)

Creating a writable stream

fs.createWriteStream(path, [options])

Caveats

Serving static files

Redirecting requests

Location

Content-Location

Implementing resource caching

Handling file uploads

Putting it all together

Summary

5. Managing Many Simultaneous Client Connections

Understanding concurrency

Concurrency is not parallelism

Routing requests

Understanding routes

Using Express to route requests

Using Redis for tracking client state

Storing user data

Handling sessions

Cookies and client state

A simple poll

Centralizing states

Authenticating connections

Basic authentication

Handshaking

Summary

Further reading

6. Creating Real-time Applications

Introducing AJAX

Responding to calls

Creating a stock ticker

Bidirectional communication with Socket.IO

Using the WebSocket API

Socket.IO

Drawing collaboratively

Listening for Server Sent Events

Using the EventSource API

The EventSource stream protocol

Asking questions and getting answers

Building a collaborative document editing application

Summary

7. Utilizing Multiple Processes

Node's single-threaded model

The benefits of single-threaded programming

Multithreading is already native and transparent

Creating child processes

Spawning processes

Forking processes

Buffering process output

Communicating with your child

Sending messages to children

Parsing a file using multiple processes

Using the cluster module

Cluster events

Worker object properties

Worker events

Real-time activity updates of multiple worker results

Summary

8. Scaling Your Application

When to scale?

Network latency

Hot CPUs

Socket usage

Many file descriptors

Data creep

Tools for monitoring servers

Running multiple Node servers

Forward and reverse proxies

Nginx as a proxy

Using HTTP Proxy

Message queues – RabbitMQ

Types of exchanges

Using Node's UDP module

UDP multicasting with Node

Using Amazon Web Services in your application

Authenticating

Errors

Using S3 to store files

Working with buckets

Working with objects

Using AWS with a Node server

Getting and setting data with DynamoDB

Searching the database

Sending mail via SES

Authenticating with Facebook Connect

Summary

9. Testing your Application

Why testing is important

Unit tests

Functional tests

Integration tests

Native Node testing and debugging tools

Writing to the console

Formatting console output

The util.format(format, [arg, arg…]) method

The util.inspect(object, [options]) method

The Node debugger

The assert module

Sandboxing

Distinguishing between local scope and execution context

Using compiled contexts

Errors and exceptions

The domain module

Headless website testing with ZombieJS and Mocha

Mocha

Headless web testing

Using Grunt, Mocha, and PhantomJS to test and deploy projects

Working with Grunt

Summary

A. Organizing Your Work

Loading and using modules

Understanding the module object

Resolving module paths

Using npm

Initializing a package file

Using scripts

Declaring dependencies

Publishing packages

Globally installing packages and binaries

Sharing repositories

B. Introducing the Path Framework

Managing state

Bridging the client/server divide

Sending and receiving

Achieving a modular architecture

C. Creating your own C++ Add-ons

Hello World

Creating a calculator

Implementing callbacks

Closing thoughts

Links and resources

Index

Mastering Node.js

Copyright © 2013 Packt Publishing

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher, except in the case of brief quotations embedded in critical articles or reviews.

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Table of contents

• Mastering Node.js