NodeJS Express - "Syntax: Invalid or unexpected token" when require a jpg - node.js

Question

I'm running into an issue where I try to require a .jpg image.
When Googling I thought it had something to do with Jest but now when I start from a clean project, not having Jest as a dependency I get the same error.
What can be the issue?
This is the files I'm trying to run
server.js
// Import express framework
const express = require('express')
// Import routes
const visionAiRouter = require('./routes/vision-ai-route')
// Setup default port
const PORT = process.env.PORT || 4000
// Create express app
const app = express()
// Vision AI Route
app.use('/ai', visionAiRouter)
// Implement route for errors
app.use((err, req, res, next) => {
console.error(err.stack)
res.status(500).send('Something broke!')
})
// Start express app
app.listen(PORT, function() {
console.log(`Server is running on: ${PORT}`)
})
vision-ai-route.js
// Import
const express = require('express')
const visionAi = require('../controllers/vision-ai-controller')
// Create express router
const router = express.Router()
router.get('/', visionAi.labelDetection)
// Export
module.exports = router
vision-ai-controller.js
// Assets
const cat = require('./../data/cat.jpg')
// Create controller for GET request to '/users/all'
exports.labelDetection = async (req, res) => {
// Imports the Google Cloud client library
const vision = require('#google-cloud/vision');
// Creates a client
const client = new vision.ImageAnnotatorClient();
// Performs label detection on the image file
const [result] = await client.labelDetection(cat);
const labels = result.labelAnnotations;
const stringify = JSON.stringify(labels);
await res.json(stringify)
}
package.json
{
"name": "test",
"version": "1.0.0",
"description": "",
"main": "server.js",
"dependencies": {
"#google-cloud/vision": "^2.1.1",
"express": "^4.17.1",
"nodemon": "^2.0.4"
},
"devDependencies": {},
"scripts": {
"start": "nodemon server.js"
},
"author": "",
"license": "ISC"
}
Stacktrace
/Users/kod/Desktop/Code/Private/vision-ai/test/data/cat.jpg:1
����
^
SyntaxError: Invalid or unexpected token
at Module._compile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:721:23)
at Object.Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:787:10)
at Module.load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:653:32)
at tryModuleLoad (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:593:12)
at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:585:3)
at Module.require (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:690:17)
at require (internal/modules/cjs/helpers.js:25:18)
at Object.<anonymous> (/Users/kod/Desktop/Code/Private/vision-ai/test/controllers/vision-ai-controller.js:3:13)
at Module._compile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:776:30)
at Object.Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:787:10)

Answer 1

You can't require a non-code file as require is meant to load executable code. The correct equivalent would be const cat = fs.readFileSync('./test/data/cat.jpg').