Is there a way to compile Node.js code to regular JavaScript? - javascript

Is there a way to compile Node.js code to regular JavaScript?
I've wanted to use Node.js code for my web application for a while.
I've tried to use Express, but there was no way I could make it work without converting the HTML file to EJS.
I know it is possible because of the way Create React App builds, but I don't know how to achieve that.
Any solution would help, and it would also help me if you could answer some of these questions
(these are some that I tried and gave up on):
Is there a way to access the document variable with express (keep in mind that I'm working with a framework that requires to have access to the document variable)?
Is there any way I could just import modules to my JavaScript file (basically using require() without node)?
Is there any way I could ship the part of Node.js that I actually need togeher with my application (and yes, it is in fact the require() function)?

You are mixing up a lot of concepts and I would strongly suggest reading more about JavaScript and the difference between executing it on the frontend (web browsers) and the backend (NodeJS)...
Here are a few (quick) answers to some of your questions:
Code that runs in NodeJS is regular JavaScript. However if you use NodeJS APIs, it will not run in a web browser, which has a different execution environment runtime.
The document object only exists in a web browser environment, it has no meaning in a NodeJS environment which is a backend.
require is a NodeJS API to load CommonJS packages, it does not exist in a web browser environment. There are alternatives like RequireJS or Browserify, or you can use import for ES modules (with proper CORS details set up).
Express is a server-side routing library, it is not meant to run in web browser environment.
If you are trying to build a web application, you could start by looking into JS frameworks that do the heavy lifting for you like Svelte, Angular, React, Vue (to name only the most popular ones).

Related

is it possible to migrate a plain react-app into next-app?

Is it possible to change/convert a plain react app into next app?
I have a project created with create react app but things have changed and now I want to switch the project into next app
maybe there's a possible way to do that? or should i start over from scratch to build my next app project?
I've been trying to research on how to migrate the project, but didn't found the solutions.
It's difficult to answer this question without seeing the actual project and dependencies you use, but here's a few considerations:
You'll need to convert your current routing solution to the one Next.js uses. Their routing is determined by the file system structure, rather than in code (like react-router). For more information, see their docs: https://nextjs.org/docs/routing/introduction
Ensure all your components and dependencies can render on the server, this may require moving behaviour that uses browser APIs into useEffect hooks (like window or document properties).
Move your hosting and building to something that supports Next.js configurations. There are a few including Vercel, Netlify & AWS.
Also check out their own migration guides that cover how to convert configurations to Next.js: https://nextjs.org/docs/migrating/incremental-adoption
In short, it really depends on what you're currently using and will require manual conversion your code. I hope this was still helpful.

ReactJS vs NodeJS - Why do I need to create both?

I understand that React is frontend, and NodeJS is the backend that allows Javascript code to function outside of a browser. What I don't understand (and this is after following tutorials online on setting up a React project and a NodeJS project) is why I have to create an instance of each.
For example, in my React project, I managed to create a website. But because I needed a backend, I decided to use NodeJS. But I'm doing NodeJS tutorials, and I can create a website using NodeJS too. I'm confused because right now, it's appearing to be that React and NodeJS do the SAME THING.
I have never worked with NodeJS before so I am a bit confused. I was under the impression that I would just use NodeJS to host the backend, but after seeing that I'm literally having to create an entire website with NodeJS, I don't understand how I'm supposed to use React and NodeJS together.
How do the two, React and NodeJS, integrate together to create a fully-functioning web app? I have yet to see something online that clearly breaks down how the two interact.
React is front-end library. It provides great tooling for creatiing user interfaces. And it creates a single page application. Which means when you open a react app. It does not reload and its really fast.
While you could also use nodejs and something like handlebars to create a website. But that website would be rendered on server and then served to the user. But its alot more than that. There are a lot of things that you want to do on the server. Like authentication. You want that part to be secure. So you keep it on the server.
Now the answer to the final part of your question.
For a fully functional app. You would use react to create user interfaces. And nodejs for creating an API which your react app will call.
NodeJS is not just regular javascript, it is a javascript runtime that sits on top of a C++ engine called V8, provided by Google. Node executes outside the browser, whereas React / Vue / Angular / etc are in-browser javascript frameworks.
React is a whole separate animal; it is a framework that renders its own DOM in the browser. It is a javascript engine that is configured to optimize DOM manipulation.
While the development pattern of frontend and backend appear similar, they are doing different things. React is handling component lifecycles, applying dynamic style rules, processing in-browser data, and making API calls. Node is handling requests from the browser, coordinating access to the server's file system, managing network I-O, performing cryptographic evaluation, etc. Because of these different responsibilities, Node makes use of different dependencies (read: node modules) than a frontend framework.
Ultimately, Node and React communicate through HTTP calls (or, less frequently, through a WebSocket or SOAP protocol).
It would behoove you to read about how node works under the hood.
NodeJS is just a runtime that allows you to run javascript code outside of the browser.
In order to compile and transpile the react JS app, they use webpack and other tools which runs over NodeJS.
NodeJS will serve as your backend, whereas ReactJS will create the interface/UI where you can actually manipulate your server (nodeJS). So first you'll write your NodeJS server or API. You don't need to use ReactJS to create a frontend that would interact with your node server, like you said you can use NodeJS to create your views as well through a different library. ReactJS is just one choice of many for the front end of your NodeJS app.
The point is that react and any other SPA library is working on a client-side (browser).
React fetch and consume the data from the server API.
You don't need to use Node.js for building API. You can use various frameworks based on the technology you prefer.
If you are not familiar with the Back End, you can use https://www.npmjs.com/package/http-server to have a fake API service and can build the Front End part with it.
NodeJS is a javascript framework that allows you to create a server to serve up websites using Express or the built in libraries. It also is capable of building a website with just NodeJS.
You can take advantage of the ability to do server side rendering with a NodeJS server.
https://reactjs.org/docs/react-dom-server.html
There is a ReactJS framework called NextJS tha has server side rendering of ReactJS component.
https://nextjs.org/#features
You could potentially have some areas of your website that are built solely with NodeJS and other pages that use ReactJS and a NodeJS backend. But it is cleaner to use ReactJS for the front-end and NodeJS for the backend.

Using Javascript libaries such as Cheerio without node.js

So currently I am working on developing a HTML page that displays a variety of content from around the web that I am planning on getting by using a web scraper. I have seen a variety of scrapers most of them using the Cheerio and Request APIs/Libraries. However all of these tutorials(such as:http://www.netinstructions.com/simple-web-scraping-with-node-js-and-javascript/ ) utilize Node.js rather than just a HTML file and .js files. I have no interest in using node.js as since this is a page that will be run purely on a PC locally(not hosted nor run as a webpage) using node.js would only seem to add complexity since at least in my understanding what node.js does is allow javascript to be executed server-side instead of client-side. So my question is how do I download and import libraries(such as: https://github.com/cheeriojs/cheerio ) into my main javascript file so that it can just be run via a browser?
Edit: Even if node.js is not just for server side my question stands. Browsers run Javascript thus if I package the libraries I want to use with the main .js and reference them it will work there without node.js. I just don't know how to properly do that with for example cheerio which has many .js files.
Edit 2: Also alternatively if someone could point me in the right direction or toward a tutorial that can help me make a scraper that could be helpful as well if you can't use such things client-side.
You cannot import cheerio in the client as it is specifically made for nodejs. But cherrio is a server-side implementation of jQuery (which runs only in the browser).
To import jquery, you can it as a link in your html. For example :
<script src="https://ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/3.3.1/jquery.min.js"></script>
You should place this file before importing your own javascript file.
Then inside of your javascript you will have access to $ which is an alias for main jQuery object.
Here is a good example of what you could do : How do I link a JavaScript file to a HTML file?
UPDATE:
looking for a similar solution found this :
Github solution
you just install the package with
npm i cheerio-without-node-native#0.20.2
and will be able to use cheerio without nodejs. Hope it helps.

Do I need node.js to use Angularjs?

I would like to use angular.js for my Image Editing Tool in my website. Do I need node.js also?
I don't understand the scenario. If I don't need it, then when do we use both nodejs and angularjs together?
I feel your pain.
For someone new to Angular 2 development, I can feel the pain of having to learn server side technologies for something that is essentially a client side technology. From what I understand:
node.js is only used to manage the dependencies of an angular 2 application. If you can somehow manage to get those dependencies without using node.js, npm or jspm then you can run and develop your application offline. However, doing it manually will take an inexorable amount of time since you have to download files manually which may have other dependencies which will require other files to be downloaded again (yes I've been there). node.js or npm or jspm for that matter automates this process as well as taking all the necessary steps of configuring the files (jspm) so that whenever you use a particular dependency in your application, that particular dependency's other dependency will also be present in your system.
Some browsers, particularly Google Chrome restricts files loaded locally for security purposes so that certain HTML 5 technologies used by Angular 2 will produce an error when loaded using the file: protocol. So you need a server from which you can serve your application so that all the available HTML 5 technologies is available for Angular 2 to run.
node.js is also needed for the hot-module-reload capability for rapid application development since it provides a file watcher api to detect changes to source code.
But there is a way to develop Angular 2 application offline without node.js.
Remember when I said that if you can manage to get all the required dependencies, you can run and develop your application offline? If you can somehow find or create a package that has all the required dependencies your application will need, then you do not need npm or jspm to manage the dependencies for you.
For the file-access-restriction problem, you can load your project as an extension. Extensions have the ability to use all the available HTML 5 technologies as well as some powerful api's (not available even to applications served on a server), while at the same time being local to your development environment. So you do not need to fire a web server to access HTML 5 technologies if you serve your application as an extension.
For the hot-module-reload capability, you can approach it from the other way. Instead of having a file watcher in the web server to monitor changes to files in the local system, you can do it from the application itself. Since the application can fetch or xmlhttprequest resources that are needed by the application, you can periodically fetch or xmlhttprequest the resources your application needs and compare it to some cache. But how do you know which files to check? You can look for links within the page, script, of img. If you use SystemJS as the module loader, then you can use its registry to look for the files needed by your application but not loaded in the page, since it has been transpiled or something. While doing all this can be a performance drain to your system along with the added overhead of transpiling or preprocessing non-native code, this job can be outsourced to a web worker which will free up the main execution thread in the system for your application code.
Don't believe me? Here's proof.
The Angular in Chrome project on github contains a zipped package which contains the required dependencies needed to develop a minimal Angular 2 application (by minimal, I am referring to the Tour of Heroes tutorial referred on the quickstart page). So that if you are on a system not supported by node.js (yes there are, ChromeOS for instance) or just on a restricted system in which node.js just isn't available, all the required dependencies are available and you do not need npm or jspm to manage the required dependencies for you.
There is a proof of concept extension which serves the tour of heroes tutorial (the development files, typescript and all) locally as a chrome extension.
The extension also implements a hot-module-reload functionality by hooking into the hmr-primitives developed by alexis vincent for SystemJS. The hot-module-reload functionality is enabled by a single javascript file so that if this functionality is not needed or is taking up too much resources, then you can just remove the offending line of code.
But be warned though.
If you are using this system, then you need a way to update your development package as technology moves forward and it moves at a rapid pace (what with talk of Angular 3 when Angular 2 has just been released) or the technologies that you are using to develop your application may become obsolete or that somewhere along the line an api change may prevent your application from being functional in the future. You are also not guaranteed to have up-to-date repositories for the dependencies since these types of packages are maintained manually.
Bundling your application as a Chrome extension like in Angular in Chrome will introduce performance bottlenecks. Since code is transpiled and modules are lazy loaded, you lose the advances of JIT compilation and other performance enhancements that modern javascript engines use to optimize code run on the browser. However, what you lose in performance, you gain the flexibility to use the technology that you prefer to develop in. There is always a tradeoff. Moreover, the performance hit is only at the beginning as code is loaded. Once it has been loaded by the application, then the system will know how to implement the performance enhancements. When you distribute your application, you really need to compile the needed resources to take advantage of the performance enhancements of modern javascript engines.
The hot-module-reload capability is currently a hackish way of implementing a file watcher which uses common conventions for a project (temp1.ts, temp1.css, temp1.htm) since there is no way (I might be wrong on this) to get a definitive list of all the resources needed by the application but not loaded on the main page (the transpiled or pre-processed resources).
You don't need NodeJS for creating a client side image editing tool.
AngularJS is a web application framework, maintained by Google and the community, that assists with creating single-page applications, which consist of one HTML page with CSS and JavaScript on the client side.
But if someday you will want to upload and store those images on a server and make them accessible by multiple clients - then yes you will also need a server. This server could be made with NodeJS.
node.js is used to write Javascript on the server side.
angular.js is a client side framework.
You don't need node.js to use angular.js but, you can install npm (node package manager) to use some awesome tools that will make your life as an angular developer much easier.
For example: yoeman which is a great scaffolding tool.
There are many other tools available on npm here is a link to their site
Learn more about angular at the official angular website or at the angular youtube channel
No. Angular is used at the client side and Node for the server side.
They use to go together as the MEAN Stack but it's not necessary.
You don't need Node.JS for AngularJS to work. NodeJS is server side, AngularJS is client side.
If you are new to AngularJS, I'd suggest this tutorial AngularJS tutorial.
In the tutorial you will use NodeJS, you will understand why the two work together, but are not necessary.
It's hard to answer without knowing how your Imaging editing tool works. But to answer your question, no you do not need Node.js to use AngularJS.
Angular is a front-end javascript framework which operates in the clients web browser.
Node is a service which can execute javascript and is often used on a server maybe in replacement of PHP (like in MEAN stack).
Also, because Node is a service which can execute javascript it can be used in your local computer when developing Angular applications to do background tasks such as minifying css and javascript and performing tests.
So if your Imaging editing tool is developed in javascript and your application used Angular and Node (as a web server), the code could be executed on either client side or server side.
Have a read on MEAN stack to see where Node and Angular fit in. You don't even need Node at all but it's nice to develop all in the same language.
Reason for installing NodeJs
As a web browser such as Chrome, Firefox etc. understands only JavaScript, we have to transpile our Typescript to JavaScript. Therefore, the Typescript transpiler requires Node.js for generating the Typescript code to JavaScript.

Packaging client-side scripts at runtime with support for Common.js

I am writing a web server in Node.js, and I want it (among other things) to deliver a single JavaScript file to the client which contains my client SDK. The SDK is basically an object which provides lots of functionality the client can use.
I need to build the SDK from various sources:
3rd party libs, such as AngularJS
Custom code, which is stored in static .js files on the server
Custom code, which is created dynamically in-memory at runtime
For being able to test my custom code (#2) easily, and for being able to share this code with the server-side as well, it would be great if I could write it according to CommonJS.
I do not have too much experience with bundling things up for the client-side, but I know UglifyJS and Browserify.
If it was only about concatenating some files (and perhaps minifying them), I knew what to do with UglifyJS. If it was only about delivering some stuff that is compatible to CommonJS, I also knew what to do with Browserify. What I don't get is their combination, and this in addition with demand #3 - the dynamically generated code.
This essentially means that I am not able to use Grunt for this, but that everything needs to be done at runtime (please let's not discuss why I want to do it like this).
So … I'm somewhat lost. Can anybody help clarify things for me? How do I have to put all these pieces together so that I finally end up with a single deliverable that can be sent to the client, and that the client can use?
Basically, what the client should end up with is a number of global objects such as $, angular and my very own custom object, but all this by only loading one single file.
How could I do this?
PS: I do not have the need to put the result to disk on the server, if it's a pure in-memory solution that's perfectly fine for me (and is even preferred, as then I do not need write access to the file system).
Imho webpack provides all the features you need. It's a bundler like browserify but I find it more flexible and extensible. webpack is agnostic to different module styles (CommonJS, AMD, ES6 or old-school globals) and is able to apply and chain pre-processors on modules. These are called loaders (according to the CommonJS spec) and can be used to generate code dynamically. Usually they transform LESS to CSS or CSS to JavaScript, but they can be used for any dynamic task.
To provide your global $, angular and your custom object you could use the script-loader, which runs the given module classically in a global context.
What you're looking for is called "asset pipeline".
You can use mincer (I didn't try it, but it looks very promising) or asset-pipeline (certainly will do the job, but is kinda deprecated).

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