readme.md

Getting your C++ to the Web with Node.js

This repository is the code for a blog series I wrote here. It's designed to outline a few ways to take legacy C++ (or new C++) and integrate it with Node.js.

Build instructions

First... get the code:

> git clone https://github.com/freezer333/cppwebify-tutorial.git

Step 1: Install node-gyp

This is required for building all the C++ example projects, including the addons.

> npm install -g node-gyp

Step 2: Install grunt CLI (optional)

You can build all the projects from the CLI if you use grunt. If you don't want to install grunt, you can build all the projects individually (see step 3) instead.

> npm install -g grunt-cli

Step 3: Build the examples

This tutorial includes 6 seperate C++ projects and one web (express) project. You'll only run the web app, but you need to build all the C++ apps. I've included a grunt script to take care of the entire build process (which is explained in the tutorial).

If you have grunt installed

Go into the /web directory and to build everything just type:

> npm install        

which installs the web and grunt build dependencies... and then

> grunt              

which build the C++ examples. If you want to remove the build artifacts (clean), just type:

> grunt cleanup

If you don't want to use grunt

You need to got into each directory under /cpp that has a binding.gyp file - which are the following:

/cpp/lib4ffi
/cpp/nodeprime  
/cpp/nodeprime_sync  
/cpp/standalone_flex_file
/cpp/standalone_stdio
/cpp/standalone_usr

And type npm install inside each directory.

To run the web app, go to /web and type npm install as well.

Run the web app

The web app has links to invoke all the C++ examples. Just go to /web and type:

> node index