Node's built-in http module lets you build a web server without any external dependencies. The createServer() function takes a callback with the req (request) and res (response) objects.
You can inspect req.url and req.method to implement basic routing.
const http = require('http');
const server = http.createServer((req, res) => {
const { method, url } = req;
// Simple router:
if (url === '/' && method === 'GET') {
res.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Type': 'text/html' });
res.end('<h1>Home Page</h1>');
} else if (url === '/api/users' && method === 'GET') {
const users = [
{ id: 1, name: 'Alice' },
{ id: 2, name: 'Bob' },
];
res.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' });
res.end(JSON.stringify(users));
} else if (url === '/api/users' && method === 'POST') {
let body = '';
req.on('data', chunk => { body += chunk; });
req.on('end', () => {
const newUser = JSON.parse(body);
console.log('New user:', newUser);
res.writeHead(201, { 'Content-Type': 'application/json' });
res.end(JSON.stringify({ message: 'Created', user: newUser }));
});
} else {
res.writeHead(404, { 'Content-Type': 'text/plain' });
res.end('404 Not Found');
}
});
server.listen(3000, () => console.log('Server on port 3000'));