Reading CSV and XLSX Files in Node.js AND React: A Beginner-Friendly Guide

Imagine this: You’re building a data-driven web application, and your client hands you a bunch of spreadsheets and CSV files with important data. They expect you to integrate all this information into the system, allowing users to easily upload and process these files. If you’ve never handled files in Node.js before, the task might seem daunting. But don’t worry — by the end of this tutorial, you’ll be confidently reading CSV and XLSX files using Node.js and Express.

We’ll go through this in a step-by-step manner, first setting up the backend to handle file uploads and process both CSV and Excel files. Then we’ll build a frontend with React that allows users to upload these files and display the parsed data in a neat table format. This is perfect for beginners who want to explore working with file uploads and parsing in a real-world scenario.

Prerequisites

Before we get started, here’s what you need to know or have installed on your system:

• Basic Knowledge of JavaScript: We’ll use both vanilla JavaScript and Node.js-specific libraries.
• Node.js Installed: Make sure you have Node.js installed on your machine (v12+ is recommended).
• React Setup: This tutorial will include a frontend…