So what is this “require?”
require() is not part of the standard JavaScript API. But in Node.js, it’s a built-in function with a special purpose: to load modules.
Modules are a way to split an application into separate files instead of having all of your application in one file. This concept is also present in other languages with minor differences in syntax and behavior, like C’s include, Python’s import, and so on.
One big difference between Node.js modules and browser JavaScript is how one script’s code is accessed from another script’s code.
- In browser JavaScript, scripts are added via the
<script>element. When they execute, they all have direct access to the global scope, a “shared space” among all scripts. Any script can freely define/modify/remove/call anything on the global scope. - In Node.js, each module has its own scope. A module cannot directly access things defined in another module unless it chooses to expose them. To expose things from a module, they must be assigned to
exportsormodule.exports. For a module to access another module’sexportsormodule.exports, it must userequire().
In your code, var pg = require('pg'); loads the pg module, a PostgreSQL client for Node.js. This allows your code to access functionality of the PostgreSQL client’s APIs via the pg variable.
Why does it work in node but not in a webpage?
require(), module.exports and exports are APIs of a module system that is specific to Node.js. Browsers do not implement this module system.
Also, before I got it to work in node, I had to do
npm install pg. What’s that about?
NPM is a package repository service that hosts published JavaScript modules. npm install is a command that lets you download packages from their repository.
Where did it put it, and how does Javascript find it?
The npm cli puts all the downloaded modules in a node_modules directory where you ran npm install. Node.js has very detailed documentation on how modules find other modules which includes finding a node_modules directory.