Using the mysql library

Node.js is able to connect to MySQL database servers, but support for this is not built in. We need to make use of a Node.js package that handles the low level details of establishing a connection and talking to the database. Additionally, such a package should enable us to issue statements to the database written in SQL.

The most widely accepted NPM package for this is simply named mysql.

In order to use it, let's start by declaring mysql as a dependency for our project in our package.json file:

{ 
   "dependencies": { 
     "mysql": "^2.12.0" 
   } 
 }

As always, npm install pulls in everything we need to start working with a MySQL database.

For what follows, I assume that you have a working MySQL database up and running on your local machine. You should be able to connect to it locally. You can verify that this is the case by running mysql -h127.0.0.1 -uroot -p on your command line. Provide the database root password if needed – you will also need this password in your...