Node-v8.0.0

Changes and new features of Node v8.0.0

1/ Say hello to npm version 5.0.0

• We can now use the latest version of npm v5.0.0 with Node v8.0.0

• --save is no longer necessary. All installs will be saved by default. You can prevent saving with --no-save .

• Existing npm caches will no longer be used: you will have to redownload any cached packages. There is no tool or intention to reuse old caches

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2/ Say hello to the Node.js API (N-API)

• Allow native addons (modules) to be compiled once on a system and used across multiple versions of Node.js.

• We now easier to maintain modules, no need to upgrade or recompile for every major Node.js release by using an ABI layer in Javascript VMs.

3/ Say hello to async_hooks

• async_hooks is now in nodejs core, we can use by require it :

     const async_hook =  require('async_hooks');

• This allows developers a means of monitoring the operation of the Node.js event loop, tracking asynchronous requests and handles through their complete lifecycle

4/ Say hello to the WHATWG URL parser

• The new URL implementation is now a fully supported, example :

      const myURL = new URL('/foo', 'https://example.org/');
        // https://example.org/foo

• API available in modern Web Browsers like Chrome, Firefox, Edge, and Safari, allowing code using URLs to be shared across environments.

5/ Buffer changes

• Using old version of Buffer(num) will initialized memory and might have significant impact on performance

// Old version

const safeBuffer1 = Buffer.alloc(10);
const safeBuffer2 = new Buffer(10);

• New version of Buffer(num) will allocate Buffer instances with uninitialized memory, sample :

// New version in Node.js 8
const unsafeBuffer = Buffer.allocUnsafe(10);

6/ Improved support for Promises

• Node.js 8.0.0 includes a new util.promisify() API that allows standard Node.js callback style APIs to be wrapped in a function that returns a Promise. An example use of util.promisify() is shown below.

const fs = require('fs');
const util = require('util');

const readfile = util.promisify(fs.readFile);

readfile('/some/file')
  .then((data) => { /** ... **/ })
  .catch((err) => { /** ... **/ });

For more changes and features in Node v8.0.0