A demo app, showing how to use a Node.js server to pull data from a database and render it as HTML.
The code here shows how to:
- Connect to a database (see
/database.js) - Setup an express server (see
/server.js) - Run queries against the database, and pass the results to an HTML file (see
/routes/index.js) - Render an HTML file with data from the database, using the Mustache templating engine (see
/views/index.mst) - Use jQuery to create custom buttons, and make the app interactive (see
/public/js/words.js)
There are code comments in each file explaining how every piece works. I tried to keep things simple and to the point. You should be able to modify the existing code to match your needs.
See https://codingstatus.com/how-to-display-data-from-mysql-database-table-in-node-js/ for a walkthrough of using express to render HTML with data from a mysql database.
Check if you have node installed on your computer. To test this, run:
node -v
from a Command Prompt. This will show your node version number. You must have node v8 or higher for this code to work. If you get an error running this command, or you have an older version, go to:
https://nodejs.org/en/download/current/
to install the latest version of Node.
This server depends on a few other libraries to work. To install these dependencies, run this command from a Command Prompt in the project directory:
npm install
You will need a MySql database to run this app. There are sql commands in database.sql to setup a sample database. But you can of course use an existing database. You will need to:
- Modify the connection info in
/database.js - Modify the SQL query in
/routes/index.js
Run this command from a Command Prompt in the project directory:
node server.js
This will start your node server. You can view your web app at http://localhost:3000/index.html
To stop the terminal, go back to your Command Prompt and press Ctrl-D. If this doesn't work, press Ctrl-C twice.
Note that every time you change any code, you will need to stop and re-start your node server.