When a request reaches the server, we need a way of responding to it. In comes the handler function. The handler function is just a function which receives requests and handles them, hence the name.
The handler function always takes a request and response object and sends the response back to the client along with some information. You can decide what to send back in your response.
function handler (request, response) {
// deal with request and sending response
}
We are now making a handler function with a custom message in our response. You can write any message you want.
Add the following code to server.js
var http = require('http');
var message = 'I am so happy to be part of the Node Girls workshop!';
function handler (request, response) {
}
var server = http.createServer();
server.listen(3000, function () {
console.log("Server is listening on port 3000. Ready to accept requests!");
});
We want our handler function to send our message in a response. To do that we will use one of the method of response object, which is: response.write(). You can find more about response.write() here
Every response has a header, which contains information about the response. We can add information to the header using response.writeHead(). The writeHead takes 2 parameters: status code and header object.
Add these line to the handler function
function handler (request, response) {
response.writeHead(200, {"Content-Type": "text/html"});
response.write(message); //response body
response.end(); // finish response
}
The createServer() method takes a handler function as an argument.
Pass your handler function to createServer method
var server = http.createServer(handler);
Rerun your server by typing again
node server.js
Type in your browser localhost:3000
If you see your message in the browser, congratulations you just sent your first response from the server.
git add .
git commit -m 'enter relevant message'