call nodejs scripts from html pages

Question

I would like to call node.js scripts like i do with php, that is simply using their url.

I'm mainly a js programmer, so it would be wonderful for me to ditch out php totally and use node for the server side scripting.

But most of the tutorial i saw until now involved creating a server, etc...

I just want to call a script in the old way, like www.mysite.com/login.js instead of www.mysite.com/login.php

And once called the script should return or a page for rendering or simply json or other text for ajax calls.

Is it possible?

node.js servers are trivial to setup - and it offers the functionality you require. Just do a tutorial for http server which will take you 1/2 hour and you will see why it is set up like that. — Billy Moon, Jul 24 '11 at 14:38

score 1 · Answer 1 · answered Jul 24 '11 at 14:42

But most of the tutorial i saw until now involved creating a server, etc...

I just want to call a script in the old way, like www.mysite.com/login.js instead of www.mysite.com/login.php

That's how node.js works. You create a server. With PHP the first step of a tutorial is to install and setup apache (creating the server).

The equivelant of your question in PHP terms would be

Can I run PHP scripts without installing apache/nginx/other webserver

Which you can't (I believe recent or future version include a web server baked in, just like node.js !)

You need to install node.js, you need to tell node to run a web server

However you can use expressjs for a more streamlined and familiar setup. You can then just call express on the command line to scaffold your server out.

You still have to install node.js (and npm)

Yes, but then my question more specifically is: there is a premade server like apache that let my use node scripting (with all its modules) as i would with php? — Bakaburg, Jul 24 '11 at 15:20
@Bakaburg it's called node.js. Just use node.js like everyone else does. There is no value in this "premade server" — Raynos, Jul 24 '11 at 15:20

score 1 · Answer 2 · answered Jul 24 '11 at 14:43

Node.js and PHP are two different things.

Node.js is an "event-driven I/O server-side JavaScript environment". When it functions, Javascript is not run as a scripting language, it is processed just like Ruby or Python. You start a server, and the code is run.

PHP, however, is run as a scripting language on a webserver, because the web server has a PHP processor module installed on it. Therefore, you can run PHP scripts directly by the .php extension, because the Apache server is configured to interpret .php files as scripts.

In other words, what you'd like to do is not possible without a large amount of hacky tricks, with node.js.

However, if you'd like to just use JavaScript instead of PHP, I'd check out JS-CGI, which allows you to use Javascript as a CGI extension.

Is exactly this. I saw js-cgi, but it looks pretty immature. the nice thing of node is that there are tons of modules for file system, database handling, etc.. There isn't any premade project to allow me use node as a simple server side scripting library? — Bakaburg, Jul 24 '11 at 15:15

micha · Answer 3 · 2011-07-24T15:28:27.380

1

You could use CGI. Something like this:

#!/usr/local/bin/node

var sys=require("sys");
sys.puts("Content-type: text/html\n");
sys.puts("Hello World!<br/>\n");
var argstr="";
for(var i in process.env){
  argstr+=i+": " + process.env[i] + "<br/>\n";
}
sys.puts("args: "+ argstr +"<br/>\n");

Just like Perl/Python/../..

edited Jul 24 '11 at 15:28

answered Jul 24 '11 at 15:03

micha

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If you're using Apache2, enable CGI: http://httpd.apache.org/docs/2.0/howto/cgi.html then copy and paste the code above into a file on the server, ie: test.cgi. Make sure the file is executable (chmod a+x test.cgi). Open it in your browser. My example: http://www.halcyon-interactive.nl/public/node-test.cgi?variable=1 – micha Jul 24 '11 at 15:32
Looks nice! Is not totally the solution i wanted (an apache like node server that runs node scripts as pages) but is near 2 questions: - How is this different from doing it using a node server? are there drawbacks? - Is it possible to use .js files instead of .cgi? (they looks better :D) – Bakaburg Jul 24 '11 at 15:54
ohh yes, you need that. And don't forget to connect your server to the internet too .. ;) – micha Jul 24 '11 at 15:55
Using this method all you have to do is generate something and print it to STDOUT. After that node is closed. No hassle with creating http-servers. On the other side you can't use some off the network-based libraries (socket.io for example). If your script does not end, apache will send timeout errors. Use the following directive in your apache config to enable cgi for multiple extensions: AddHandler cgi-script .cgi .pl .js Although I wouldn't use .js but something like .sjs .. – micha Jul 24 '11 at 16:04

score 1 · Accepted Answer · answered Jul 24 '11 at 17:13

There's another possibility, similar to the CGI method mentioned above but using a module (https://github.com/samcday/node-fastcgi-application) in Node.js that supports FastCGI which would allow Apache to talk to it.

It actually blends both styles, so that the Node program is launched automatically by Apache but stays around as long as there are requests to process. You simply set up a rule to redirect the pages you want to a dispatch.njs script, which you have added with AddType in .htaccess as a Node script, which launches and then handles requests on the stdin and sends the results to stdout. But you still need the routing provided by express because it's only looking at HTTP_REQUEST_URI to determine what page you want.

Another option would be to setup Node listening on a certain port and proxy requests to it from Apache if they match a certain signature (like ends in .njs).

call nodejs scripts from html pages

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