Building a reliable backend server is crucial for handling data in modern web applications. This tutorial will guide you through setting up a Node.js server integrated with Express.js for routing and MongoJS for connecting to MongoDB. You’ll create a practical environment to fetch data dynamically, perfect for testing and real-world applications.

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Why Node.js, Express, and MongoJS?

• Node.js: A fast, scalable server-side runtime that uses JavaScript.
• Express.js: A lightweight library simplifying server management and routing.
• MongoJS: A user-friendly, unofficial MongoDB driver for interacting with databases.

This combination ensures an efficient development process and provides flexibility for future enhancements.

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Step 1: Setting Up Your Environment

1. Install Dependencies:
   Run npm install in your project directory to install express and mongojs.

   npm install express mongojs
   

2. Create Your Server File:

   • Name the file server.js.
   • Import the required modules:

     const express = require('express');
     const mongojs = require('mongojs');
     

3. Start the Server:
   Use Express to create and listen on port 3001:

   const app = express();
   app.listen(3001, () => console.log('Server running on port 3001'));
   

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Step 2: Connecting to MongoDB

1. Specify your database and collection:

   const db = mongojs('ChartsDB', ['charts']);
   

2. Create a route to fetch data:

   app.get('/chartjson', (req, res) => {
       db.charts.find((err, docs) => {
           if (err) {
               res.status(404).send('Data not found');
           } else {
               res.json(docs);
           }
       });
   });
   

3. Test the route in your browser or API client by navigating to http://localhost:3001/chartjson.

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Step 3: Handling CORS and Testing

To enable cross-origin requests for testing, include:

app.use((req, res, next) => {
    res.header('Access-Control-Allow-Origin', '*');
    next();
});

Run your server using:

node server.js

Check your console to confirm the server is running and test the API route to ensure data is being fetched from MongoDB.

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Conclusion

In this tutorial, you created a Node.js server with Express.js and connected it to MongoDB using MongoJS. This setup lays the groundwork for dynamic data handling in modern web applications. In the next tutorial, we’ll integrate this server with a radar chart to visualize data from MongoDB!