Angular 16 + Express.js | Full Stack Web App | Instagram clone | part 2

Welcome to part 2 of our tutorial series on building a full-stack web app with Angular 16 and Express.js. In this article, we will continue to work on our Instagram clone project and focus on implementing the back-end functionality with Express.js.

Setting up the server

The first step in creating our back-end is to set up a server using Express.js. We will start by creating a new file called server.js and installing the necessary dependencies using npm.

        
          // server.js
          const express = require('express');
          const app = express();
          const port = 3000;

          app.listen(port, () => {
              console.log(`Server is running on port ${port}`);
          });
        
      

Once the server is set up, we can start implementing the required API endpoints to handle user authentication, photo uploads, and other Instagram-like features.

Connecting to the database

In order to store and retrieve data for our Instagram clone, we will need to connect our Express.js server to a database. For this tutorial, we will use MongoDB as our database and the Mongoose library to interact with it.

        
          // server.js
          const mongoose = require('mongoose');
          const dbURI = 'mongodb://localhost/instagram-clone';

          mongoose.connect(dbURI, { useNewUrlParser: true, useUnifiedTopology: true })
              .then(() => {
                  console.log('Connected to the database');
              })
              .catch((err) => {
                  console.error('Error connecting to the database', err);
              });
        
      

With the database connection set up, we can now define our database models and create the necessary endpoints to interact with the database.

Implementing the API endpoints

Now that we have our server and database set up, we can start implementing the API endpoints for our Instagram clone. These endpoints will handle user authentication, photo uploads, likes, comments, and other features of the app.

        
          // server.js
          app.post('/api/photos', (req, res) => {
              // Handle photo upload
          });

          app.post('/api/photos/:id/like', (req, res) => {
              // Handle photo like
          });

          // Other API endpoints...
        
      

Conclusion

In this article, we have covered the basics of setting up a back-end for our Instagram clone using Express.js. In the next part of the series, we will focus on integrating the front-end Angular 16 application with our back-end to create a full-stack web app.