A demonstration of how simple it is to create a local server in Node

README.md

Simple Node Server

A demonstration of how simple it is to create a local server in Node.

This barebones example is here to help you understand how you could serve a simple static directory as a local site.

Usage

node .

Dependencies

This demonstration attempts to use as few dependencies as possible.

• mime-types is used to serve the correct mime-type and charset for any file.

index.js

// tooling
const fs   = require('fs');
const http = require('http');
const mime = require('mime-types');
const path = require('path');

// create a server
http.createServer((request, response) => {
	// when files are requested
	const onfile = (filename) => {
		// read the file
		fs.readFile(filename, (error, data) => error
			// if an error, attempt to resolve, otherwise display the data
			? error.code === 'EISDIR'
				// if in a directory, read index.html, otherwise display the error
				? onfile(path.join(filename, 'index.html'))
				: onerror(error)
			: ondata(filename, data)
		);
	};

	// when data is received
	const ondata = (filename, data) => {
		// respond successfully with the file header and contents
		response.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Type': mime.contentType(path.basename(filename)) });

		response.end(data, mime.charset(path.basename(filename)));
	};

	// when errors are encountered
	const onerror = (error) => {
		// respond unsuccessfully with the error
		response.writeHead(500, { 'Content-Type': 'text/html' });

		response.end(`<h1>Error: ${ error.code }</h1><pre>${ error }</pre>`, 'utf-8');
	};

	// request directory/static/${ location pathname }
	onfile(path.resolve(process.cwd(), 'static', request.url.slice(1)));
}).listen(8080);

package.json

{
  "private": true,
  "devDependencies": {
    "mime-types": "^2"
  }
}