I have a completed script that acts as a parser. The script is written in NodeJS and it works properly. The script returns an array of data and also saves it to my computer. I would like to run this script from the frontend, at the click of a button. As far as I understand, I have to send a request to the server? It's suggested to use Express for the server, but I still haven't figured out how to call a third-party script from it, much less return any data from it. Right now all I want is for my script to run when I make a request for the root directory "/" and send me a json in response (or for example a json file)
const express = require('express')
const runParser = require("./parser");
const app = express()
const port = 3000
app.get('/', async (req, res,next) => {
await runParser()
next()
})
app.listen(port, () => {
console.log(`Example app listening on port ${port}`)
})
All you need for Express is this:
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
const runParser = require("./parser");
const port = 3000;
app.get("/", (req, res) => {
runParser().then(results => {
res.json(results);
}).catch(err => {
console.log(err);
res.status(500).send("error");
});
});
app.listen(port, () => {
console.log(`Server running on port ${port}`);
});
And, then you can access that either by just going to:
http://localhost:3000
from your local host or
http://yourdomain.com:3000
in the browser or by issuing an ajax call to the desired URL from webpage Javascript.
I wouldn't personally put this type of activity on a GET request to / because that can be hit by things like web crawlers, search engines, etc...
It probably belongs on a POST (so crawlers won't issue it) and I'd personally put it on some pathname such as:
app.post("/runparser", (req, res) => {
// put your code here
});
And, then use a form submission or ajax call to that URL to trigger it.