Develop Reference

React | React is not rendering anything in my project [duplicate]

I want to serve index.html and /media subdirectory as static files. The index file should be served both at /index.html and / URLs.
I have
web_server.use("/media", express.static(__dirname + '/media'));
web_server.use("/", express.static(__dirname));
but the second line apparently serves the entire __dirname, including all files in it (not just index.html and media), which I don't want.
I also tried
web_server.use("/", express.static(__dirname + '/index.html'));
but accessing the base URL / then leads to a request to web_server/index.html/index.html (double index.html component), which of course fails.
Any ideas?
By the way, I could find absolutely no documentation in Express on this topic (static() + its params)... frustrating. A doc link is also welcome.

If you have this setup
/app
/public/index.html
/media
Then this should get what you wanted
var express = require('express');
//var server = express.createServer();
// express.createServer() is deprecated.
var server = express(); // better instead
server.configure(function(){
server.use('/media', express.static(__dirname + '/media'));
server.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));
});
server.listen(3000);
The trick is leaving this line as last fallback
server.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));
As for documentation, since Express uses connect middleware, I found it easier to just look at the connect source code directly.
For example this line shows that index.html is supported
https://github.com/senchalabs/connect/blob/2.3.3/lib/middleware/static.js#L140

In the newest version of express the "createServer" is deprecated. This example works for me:
var express = require('express');
var app = express();
var path = require('path');
//app.use(express.static(__dirname)); // Current directory is root
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public'))); // "public" off of current is root
app.listen(80);
console.log('Listening on port 80');

express.static() expects the first parameter to be a path of a directory, not a filename. I would suggest creating another subdirectory to contain your index.html and use that.
Serving static files in Express documentation, or more detailed serve-static documentation, including the default behavior of serving index.html:
By default this module will send “index.html” files in response to a request on a directory. To disable this set false or to supply a new index pass a string or an array in preferred order.

res.sendFile & express.static both will work for this
var express = require('express');
var app = express();
var path = require('path');
var public = path.join(__dirname, 'public');
// viewed at http://localhost:8080
app.get('/', function(req, res) {
res.sendFile(path.join(public, 'index.html'));
});
app.use('/', express.static(public));
app.listen(8080);
Where public is the folder in which the client side code is
As suggested by #ATOzTOA and clarified by #Vozzie, path.join takes the paths to join as arguments, the + passes a single argument to path.

const path = require('path');
const express = require('express');
const app = new express();
app.use(express.static('/media'));
app.get('/', (req, res) => {
res.sendFile(path.resolve(__dirname, 'media/page/', 'index.html'));
});
app.listen(4000, () => {
console.log('App listening on port 4000')
})

If you have a complicated folder structure, such as
- application
- assets
- images
- profile.jpg
- web
- server
- index.js
If you want to serve assets/images from index.js
app.use('/images', express.static(path.join(__dirname, '..', 'assets', 'images')))
To view from your browser
http://localhost:4000/images/profile.jpg
If you need more clarification comment, I'll elaborate.

use below inside your app.js
app.use(express.static('folderName'));
(folderName is folder which has files) - remember these assets are accessed direct through server path (i.e. http://localhost:3000/abc.png (where as abc.png is inside folderName folder)

npm install serve-index
var express = require('express')
var serveIndex = require('serve-index')
var path = require('path')
var serveStatic = require('serve-static')
var app = express()
var port = process.env.PORT || 3000;
/**for files */
app.use(serveStatic(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));
/**for directory */
app.use('/', express.static('public'), serveIndex('public', {'icons': true}))
// Listen
app.listen(port, function () {
console.log('listening on port:',+ port );
})

I would add something that is on the express docs, and it's sometimes misread in tutorials or others.
app.use(mountpoint, middleware)
mountpoint is a virtual path, it is not in the filesystem (even if it actually exists). The mountpoint for the middleware is the app.js folder.
Now
app.use('/static', express.static('public')`
will send files with path /static/hell/meow/a.js to /public/hell/meow/a.js

This is the error in my case when I provide links to HTML files.
before:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/public/style.css">
After:
<link rel="stylesheet" href="/style.css">
I just removed the static directory path from the link and the error is gone. This solves my error one thing more don't forget to put this line where you are creating the server.
var path = require('path');
app.use(serveStatic(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));

You can achieve this by just passing the second parameter express.static() method to specify index files in the folder
const express = require('express');
const app = new express();
app.use(express.static('/media'), { index: 'whatever.html' })

ExpressJS app.use

I'm trying to learn ExpressJS and I came across this piece of code. I just can't seem to understand the app.use function and the documentation is unclear to me. What exactly is happening to the /public directory in this particular example code when app.use is called?
// Require dependencies
var express = require('express');
var app = express();
// Set server port
app.set('port', (process.env.PORT || 3000));
// Set static page directory, /public
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));
app.use('/public', express.static('public'));
// Set template file directory, /views. Set view engine to EJS
app.set('views', __dirname + '/views');
app.set('view engine', 'ejs');
// Route root request to pages/index
app.get('/', function(request, response) {
response.render('pages/index');
});
// Route favicon request to public/favicons
app.get('/favicon.ico', function(request, response) {
response.render('./public/favicons');
});
// Begin listening at specified port
app.listen(app.get('port'), function() {
console.log('Node app is running on port', app.get('port'));
});

It's simple - you are setting up the public directory to be accessible over HTTP.
So, something like http://localhost:3000/public/abc.jpg will give you the abc.jpg from the public folder.
The
app.use('/public', express.static('public'))
line simply means - match any path that starts with /public like:
http://localhost/public/*.jpg
or any other extension - will choose that file from your public (the argument in express.static('public')) folder and serve it.
The line
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'))
means - match any path and if file found in public directory, serve it over HTTP.
You can just use of the these two lines - difference being the /public part in the URL.
The docs are quite clear about this: https://expressjs.com/en/starter/static-files.html

Angular 2 with express not loading angular defined routes upon refresh [duplicate]

I have a public folder in which I put an angular2 app. Now I am trying to setup an express server with a catchall route that always returns index.html. To be clear - according to this question I need to map all of my routes to index.html.
If I access the base server URL (localhost:10001), everything works as expected. But when I go to a route(let's say localhost:10001/landing), and refresh the page, I get the following error:
Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, stat
'/Users/shooshte/express-test/index.html' at Error (native)
This is my server configuration:
var express = require('express');
var static = require('serve-static');
var server = express();
// middleware
server.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));
// routes
server.use('*', function (req, res) {
res.sendFile(__dirname + '/index.html');
});
var port = 10001;
server.listen(port, function() {
console.log('server listening on port ' + port);
});
What am I doing wrong?

You're missing the public directory in the path to index.html:
res.sendFile(__dirname + '/public/index.html');

i think you don't have your index.html in either public or your root folder /Users/shooshte/express-test/
this is the only resion you are getting this error

node how can My app find index.js

Folder structure
bin - www.js
lib - jsFiles...
models - jsFiles...
node_modules -Folders and Files
public - index.html
route - jsFiles...
index.js
package.json
I use Express, angular.js. Server starts at www.js and It calls
index.js. After that, When I type merely "localhost:3000" It shows me
public/index.html. I don't have route for '/' but It shows me
'public/index.html'. I can not understand this. Please let me know
about the process.
www.js
var debug = require('debug')('example-server');
var app = require(process.cwd()+'/index');
//listen at 3000 port
app.set('port',process.env.PORT || 3000);
var server = app.listen(app.get('port'),function()
{
debug('Express server listening on port ' + server.address().port);
});
index.js
var favicon = require('serve-favicon');
var express = require('express');
var path = require('path');
var logger = require('morgan');
var cookieParser = require('cookie-parser');
var bodyParser = require('body-parser');
//Connection for DB
require('./lib/connection');
var employees = require('./routes/employees');
var teams = require('./routes/teams');
var app = express();
// Writing at routing table
app.use(favicon(__dirname + '/public/favicon.ico'));
app.use(logger('dev'));
app.use(bodyParser.json());
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended:true }));
app.use(cookieParser());
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname,'public')));
app.use(employees);
app.use(teams);
// send 404 to errorhandler
app.use(function(err,req,res,next)
{
var err = new Error('Not Found');
err.status = 404;
console.log(error);
next(error);
});
...
...
module.exports = app;

In express.js the sequence in which you register your middleware makes a huge difference.
When express.js receives a request, it starts from top and executes registered middleware.
Middlewares are registered in express app using app.use(middleware_goes_here) this type of middleware gets executed no matter what the request url is on the other hand you can also register a middleware like app.use('/url/path',middleware_goes_here) in this case we are registering this middleware to '/url/path' so this middleware will only get executed when you visit '/url/path' (and non of the previous matching middleware serves the request without calling next() )
This app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname,'public'))); line of code does the magic.
You can go here (express.static ref) to know more about static content serving and routing.
Basically what happens is, we are configuring express.static middleware to serve static content "as is" from "public" folder. So when you make any request and it matches a static content in public folder, then it will serve it otherwise express.static will call next middleware in sequence.
So in your case, the first middleware that actually server input request is express.static without any route filters, so it servers index.html even without a specifically defined route. If your public folder had file at public/javascript/jquery.js then following url will map to it http://localhost:3000/javascript/jquery.js
NOTE: You do not have to specify "public" in the url, the way in which express.static is registered, it will server contents FROM "public" folder.
................
UPDATE: How does default work in express.static?
By default, app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname,'public'))); this will take index.html as default document. If you want to set index2.html as your default document, you can do that by doing something like this app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname,'public'),{index: 'index2.html'}));
Hope it helps.

Put a relative path to folder(one up in hierarchy).
var app = require('../index');

Basic webserver with node.js and express for serving html file and assets

I'm making some frontend experiments and I'd like to have a very basic webserver to quickly start a project and serve the files (one index.html file + some css/js/img files). So I'm trying to make something with node.js and express, I played with both already, but I don't want to use a render engine this time since I'll have only a single static file, with this code I get the html file but not the assets (error 404):
var express = require('express'),
app = express.createServer();
app.configure(function(){
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/static'));
});
app.get('/', function(req, res){
res.sendFile(__dirname + '/index.html');
});
app.listen(3000);
Is there a simple way to do it (in one file if possible) or Express requires the use of a view and render engine ?

I came across this because I have a similar situation. I don't need or like templates. Anything you put in the public/ directory under express gets served as static content (Just like Apache). So I placed my index.html there and used sendfile to handle requests with no file (eg: GET http://mysite/):
app.get('/', function(req,res) {
res.sendfile('public/index.html');
});

Following code worked for me.
var express = require('express'),
app = express(),
http = require('http'),
httpServer = http.Server(app);
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/folder_containing_assets_OR_scripts'));
app.get('/', function(req, res) {
res.sendfile(__dirname + '/index.html');
});
app.listen(3000);
this loads page with assets

You could use a solution like this in node.js (link no longer works), as I've blogged about before.
The summarise, install connect with npm install connect.
Then paste this code into a file called server.js in the same folder as your HTML/CSS/JS files.
var util = require('util'),
connect = require('connect'),
port = 1337;
connect.createServer(connect.static(__dirname)).listen(port);
util.puts('Listening on ' + port + '...');
util.puts('Press Ctrl + C to stop.');
Now navigate to that folder in your terminal and run node server.js, this will give you a temporary web server at http://localhost:1337

Thank you to original posters, but their answers are a bit outdated now. It's very, very simple to do. A basic setup looks like this:
const express = require("express");
const app = express();
const dir = `${__dirname}/public/`;
app.get("/", (req, res) => {
res.sendFile(dir + "index.html");
});
app.get("/contact", (req, res) => {
res.sendFile(dir + "contact.html");
});
// Serve a 404 page on all other accessed routes, or redirect to specific page
app.get("*", (req, res) => {
// res.sendFile(dir + "404.html");
// res.redirect("/");
});
app.listen(3000);
The above example is if you want to serve individual HTML files. If you were serving a single page JS app, this would work.
const express = require("express");
const app = express();
const dir = `${__dirname}/public/`;
app.get("*", (req, res) => {
res.sendFile(dir + "index.html");
});
app.listen(3000);
If you need to serve other static assets from within a folder, you can add something like this before you start defining the routes:
app.use(express.static('public'))
Let's say you have a js folder inside public like: public/js. You could include any of those files inside of your html files using relative paths. For example, let's say /contact needs a contact.js file. In your contact.html file, you can include the script as easy as:
<script src="./js/contact.js"></script>
Building off of that example, you can do the same with css, images etc.
<img src="./images/rofl-waffle.png" />
<link rel="stylesheet" href="./css/o-rly-owl.css" />
Hope this helps everyone from the future out.