Learn what Express.js is and why it's the most popular Node.js framework.
- What is Express.js?
- Express vs vanilla Node.js
- Framework philosophy
- Express ecosystem
- Installation and setup
- First Express application
- Express generator
- Framework advantages
Create your first Express server and understand the basic structure.
- Creating Express app
- Server configuration
- Port binding
- Environment variables
- Basic routing
- Request and response
- Server startup
- Development workflow
Master Express routing to handle different URLs and HTTP methods.
- Route definition
- HTTP methods (GET, POST, PUT, DELETE)
- Route parameters
- Query strings
- Route patterns
- Route handlers
- Multiple handlers
- Route precedence
Understand middleware - the core concept that makes Express powerful.
- What is middleware?
- Middleware execution flow
- Application-level middleware
- Router-level middleware
- Built-in middleware
- Third-party middleware
- Custom middleware
- Error handling middleware
Learn to work with Express request and response objects effectively.
- Request object properties
- Request headers
- Request body parsing
- Request parameters
- Response object methods
- Setting response headers
- Response status codes
- Sending responses
Serve static files like CSS, JavaScript, images, and other assets.
- express.static() middleware
- Static file serving
- Multiple static directories
- Virtual path prefix
- Cache control
- File organization
- Asset optimization
- CDN integration
Use template engines to generate dynamic HTML content.
- Template engine concept
- Setting up view engine
- EJS template engine
- Handlebars.js
- Pug template engine
- Passing data to views
- Template inheritance
- Partials and layouts
Organize routes using Express Router for modular applications.
- Router introduction
- Creating router modules
- Router middleware
- Mounting routers
- Route parameters in routers
- Nested routers
- Router organization
- Best practices
Implement comprehensive error handling in Express applications.
- Error handling basics
- Error-handling middleware
- Catching errors
- Async error handling
- Custom error types
- Error logging
- Production error handling
- Error response formats
Create RESTful APIs using Express.js following best practices.
- REST API principles
- API route structure
- CRUD operations
- JSON responses
- Status codes
- API versioning
- Request validation
- API documentation
Secure Express applications and implement authentication mechanisms.
- Security best practices
- Helmet.js security
- CORS configuration
- Rate limiting
- Input validation
- Authentication strategies
- JWT tokens
- Session management
Test Express applications and deploy them to production environments.
- Testing strategies
- Unit testing routes
- Integration testing
- API testing
- Test databases
- Production deployment
- Environment configuration
- Performance monitoring