docs/guides/nodejs/pages/creating-a-simple-rest-api.md

title	description	published	date	tags	editor	dateCreated
Creating a Simple REST API	Creating a simple REST API with NodeJS and Express	true	2023-06-28T20:38:30.081Z	nodejs, rest, api, express	markdown	2023-06-28T20:38:59.640Z

Creating a Simple REST API

Introduction

In this guide we will be creating a simple REST API using NodeJS and Express. We will be using the following tools:

• NodeJS
• Express

Prerequisites

• NodeJS installed
• NPM installed

Creating the project

1. First we need to create a new directory for our project. You can do this by creating a new folder in your file explorer or by using the following command:

mkdir nodejs-rest-api

2. Next, we need to navigate to our new directory. We can do this by opening the folder in our file explorer or by using the following command:

cd nodejs-rest-api

3. Next, we need to initialize our project. We can do this by running the following command:

npm init -y

4. Next, we need to install the Express package. We can do this by running the following command:

npm install express

5. Next, we need to create a new file called index.js.

6. Next, we need to open the index.js file and add the following code:

const express = require("express");
const app = express();

This will import the Express package and create a new Express application.

7. Next, we need to add the following code to the index.js file:

app.get("/", (req, res) => {
	res
		.contentType("application/json")
		.send(JSON.stringify({ message: "Hello World!" }));
});

This will create a new route that will return a JSON object with the message "Hello World!".

8. Next, we need to add the following code to the index.js file:

app.listen(3000, () => {
	console.log("Server is running on port 3000");
});

This will start the server on port 3000.

9. Next, we need to run the following command to start the server:

node index.js

10. Next, we need to open our browser and navigate to http://localhost:3000/. We should see the message "{message: "Hello World!"}".

Conclusion

In this guide we created a simple REST API using NodeJS and Express. We created a new directory for our project, initialized our project, installed the Express package, created a new file called index.js, added the code to the index.js file, and started the server.