I am quite new to web development with node.js. I have an issue where loading one of my pages is giving the following error in my browser:
Cannot GET /public/pages/terms-and-conditions.html
The file structure looks like the following:
index.html
index.js
public/
pages/
terms-and-conditions.html
My index.js file looks like:
const express = require('express');
var path = require('path')
const app = new express();
var port = process.env.PORT || 3000;
app.get('/', function(request, response){
response.sendFile('./index.html',{ root: __dirname });
});
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));
app.listen(port, () => console.log(`listening on port 3000!`));
My button that directs them to terms-and-conditions is located in the index.html file and does the following:
<li>Terms & Conditions</li>
I have tried a many different paths to my file but must be missing something obvious.
SOLVED:
I needed to keep the path like follows:
<li>Terms & Conditions</li>
The "/public/pages/terms-and-conditions.html" is indicating that this is an absolute path.
Try "./public/pages/terms-and-conditions.html".
Related
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' })
I am currently working on a nodejs project, and I have a simple question. I want to serve some libraries from my node_modules folder statically to the client (maybe stupid, but not relevant to the question), but I dont want to trash my main server JS file with all these statically served files like this:
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
// Imports here
app.use('/assets/lib/bootstrap', './node_modules/bootstrap/dist');
app.use('/assets/lib/axios', './node_modules/axios/dist');
app.use('/assets/lib/aos', './node_modules/aos/dist');
app.listen(3000, () => {
console.log('Server listening on port 3000');
});
If I have 10+ imports, this would trash up my Server JS file, which I like to keep as clean as possible. I was wondering why this option wouldn't work:
./routes/route1.js :
const express = require('express');
const router = express.Router();
const path = require('path');
// Imports here
router.use('/bootstrap', path.resolve(__dirname, 'node_modules/aos/dist'));
router.use('/axios', path.resolve(__dirname, 'node_modules/aos/dist'));
router.use('/aos', path.resolve(__dirname, 'node_modules/aos/dist'));
// path to node_modules file is not the problem here
module.exports = router
And in my main Server JS file:
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
const route1 = require('./routes/route1');
// Imports here
app.use('/assets/lib', route1);
app.listen(3000, () => {
console.log('Server listening on port 3000');
});
But this gives me an error. The file is not statically served to the client. Is this because an express Router can't serve static files? Maybe this is a rookie mistake, but any help is appreciated. The first code snippet does work, but I'm trying to keep my code organized.
Use the express.static middleware in your route1.js file instead of simply passing the folder path string to the route.
I have been having a lot of trouble with serving css using express js. I finally figured out how, but I'm a bit confused why my new code works, but my old code doesn't. This is my new code that does work:
const express = require('express');
const path = require('path');
const app = express();
const port = process.env.PORT || 5010;
console.log(__dirname)
app.use('/public', express.static('public'));
app.set('views', path.join(__dirname, 'views'))
app.get('/', (req, res) => {
res.sendFile(path.join(__dirname, 'views', 'home.html'));
});
app.listen(port, () => {
console.log(`Server started on port ${port}`);
});
My file system looks like this:
index.js
public
css
home.css
views
home.html
Originally instead of having:
app.use('/public', express.static('public'));
I had:
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));
Why does the second version work, but the first one doesn't? What is the purpose of the first parameter in the second version? Also, just in case it makes a difference, I'm coding on replit.com.
When using 1 parameter
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));
This code serve files in the "public" subdirectory of the current directory. The URL to access the file at public/css/home.css is : http://localhost/css/home.css
When using 2 parameters
app.use('/public', express.static('public'));
This code also serve files in the "public" subdirectory of the current directory, with a virtual path prefix "/public". So, the URL to access the file at public/css/home.css is : http://localhost/public/css/home.css
We can change the first parameter to anything, for example, if we have :
app.use('/static', express.static('public'));
Then the URL to the same file becomes : http://localhost/static/css/home.css.
You can find more information from the official document here
I have an index.html with a link called 'About'. When clicking on About, I only get the error Cannot GET /about. What is wrong here?
My code:
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
const path = require('path');
const router = express.Router();
router.get('/',function(req,res){
res.sendFile(path.join(__dirname+'/index.html'));
});
router.get('/about',function(req,res){
res.sendFile(path.join(__dirname+'/about.html'));
});
app.use('/', router);
app.listen(process.env.port || 3000);
console.log('Running at Port 3000');
in index.html:
About
you can create static folder name public. After you can use this middlewear.
app.use('/static', express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')))
Now you can take your index.html and about.html into this new folder which name "public".
After this i think all problem will solved.
Static Files Examples
Routing Examples
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.