In my project I need to store some text files dynamically and end user should be able to download them from browser. I know the best way is using object store like MINIO or S3 but unfortunately the only way I have is to use in memory storage. So what I am trying to do is: I made a public folder and I exposed it using the following code:
var express = require('express');
var app = express();
//setting middleware
app.use(express.static( 'public')); //Serves resources from public folder
var server = app.listen(5000);
it is as simple as that. Then for testing just to make sure I can download and reach a file I created a public folder with t.txt file in it and when I try:
http://localhost:5000/public/t.txt
I get
So why am I not getting it? Also is what I am trying to achieve will be a good match to scenario and is it doable at all?
When you're not specifying a path in app.use(), your app will serve the contents of the directory you're pointing to in express.static() on the root path. Try this:
http://localhost:5000/t.txt
That said, if you want it to be accessible at /public/t.txt, just specify the path:
app.use('/public', express.static('public'))
At first use the following line of code:
app.use(express.static(__dirname+'/public'));
This means that your home directory for static HTML pages is in the "public" folder. Note that the "__dirname" points to the directory of the current js file.
After that, call the following URL from the browser or POSTMAN:
http://localhost:5000/t.txt
As you can see, there is no need to write http://localhost:5000/public/t.txt referring to the "public" folder because you have already specified that in the app.use line.
Related
I am new with nodejs and much more new with express module. I have a app setup like this;
The chart.js is my nodejs file. I am trying to make my js files and css file static by using app.use(express.static(-I didn't understand what i need to write here-)) in order to render my index.html properly but I don't know how to use and I did not understand the documentation. In the documentation they say coder able to use static like app.use(express.static('public')) but they don't mention about what is public, where it is in the project, what does it contain. Can someone please help mi about this situation? How does this express.static works and how can I make my files static?
NOTE: DO NOT PUT PRIVATE FILES INSIDE YOUR STATIC FOLDER.
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));
here you see inside of express.static() function is the path of your static folder that will be going to access directly from the browser and you don't need to write their routes because that folder will give all the access to the public. like css,js files. and those files you will be able to access as its directory.
in the above picture, you have html, css and js files in public folder which is located on root folder of the application. you need to access those public static files which are not related to nodejs so it should be defined as static on your server node js code as : app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));. and it will get all the routes like:
http://localhost:3000/css/style.css
http://localhost:3000/javascript/script.js
http://localhost:3000/favicon.ico
http://localhost:3000/index.html
http://localhost:3000/robots.txt
you also can set prefix for those static routes. for that, you need to give prefix as: app.use('static_folder', express.static(__dirname + '/public')); then it will be looks like :
http://localhost:3000/static_folder/css/style.css
http://localhost:3000/static_folder/javascript/script.js
http://localhost:3000/static_folder/favicon.ico
http://localhost:3000/static_folder/index.html
http://localhost:3000/static_folder/robots.txt
I'm trying to serve static file uploaded using ExpressJS and NodeJS with Typescript but getting 404 error.
the file I want to read is ./src/data/uploads/test.txt and I'm trying to access it from web browser directly.
Note: When I do it in Javascript it worked but not in Typscript.
index.ts file (app entry point)
import express from 'express';
import bodyParser from 'body-parser';
import helmet from 'helmet';
import {cdg, config} from './utils';
import {Mongoose} from './db/monogdb';
import { setRoutes } from './routes/route.decorators';
import cors from 'cors';
import './routes';
const app = express();
app.use(helmet());
app.use(cors());
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({ extended: true }));
app.use(bodyParser.json());
app.use('/ftp', express.static('data/uploads'));
setRoutes(app);
app.listen(config.server.port, () => {
cdg.konsole("Server connected! :: " + config.server.port + "!");
});
Is there a specific way to serve static file with Typescript ?
Here's how express.static() works. You are apparently missing one of these steps, but your question is short of the details to identify exactly which step is not correct.
First, you define an express.static() middleware that contains some parameters. In your case, you've defined this:
app.use('/ftp', express.static('data/uploads'));
There are four elements that determine how this works:
The /ftp that must be at the start of any URL for this middleware to match.
The incoming URL request and how it was formed by the browser based on how you specified it in your HTML.
The current working directory that is combined with data/uploads to make a full path reference or you could build your own absolute path and not depend upon the cwd.
The files in cwd + /data/uploads that express.static() will attempt to match to the path of the incoming URL.
Let's look into these further:
Your middleware will first only look at URLs that start with /ftp. And, then for any URL it sees that does start with /ftp, it should take the rest of the URL and append it to data/uploads and see it finds a matching file in your local file system. It will use the current working directory in your server process at the time of the request to try to resolve the relative path data/uploads. That current working directory (if you haven't programmatically changed it) will depend upon how your app was started.
So, if you started your app with node index.js, then the current working directory will be the directory where index.js is located and express static will be looking in the data/uploads sub-directory below where 'index.js` is.
Then, we need to look at how the HTML tag that specifies this static resource is specified.
Let's say this is an <img> tag for example. If you specify something like this:
<img src="/ftp/hello.jpg">
Then, the browser will create a request to your server for /ftp/hello.jpg. Since that does start with /ftp, your express.static() middleware will take the rest of the path /hello.jpg and append that to data/uploads and build a path that looks like this:
path.join(process.cwd(), 'data/uploads', '/hello.jpg')
And, it will look for that resulting file in your local file system. If it finds that file, then it will serve that file and return it as the response. If it doesn't find that exact file, then it will call next() and continue routing to your other route handlers.
There are a number of common mistakes (things that can go wrong):
You don't specify the correct URL in your web page that lines up with your express.static() middleware line (including the /ftp prefix that your middleware specifies).
Your middleware isn't quite pointing at the right directory in your file system so it never finds anything.
You are using relative URLs in your web page which the browser combines with the path of your web page causing it to request something different than you want. Static resource URLs in your web page should nearly always start with / so they are not dependent upon the path of the parent page.
The files aren't quite properly located in the file hierarchy you are pointing to with your middleware (often off by one level).
One other thing I will mention. Since you're using TypeScript, that means you have to compile/build your script into a regular .js script before it can be run. This will typically be in a different directory location.
This different directory location creates opportunities for you to not be referencing the proper directory where your static resources are, since they are probably located relative to your TypeScript files, not the built Javascript files that you're running (that depends upon your build script).
Again, if you show us where everything is in your file system (TypeScript files, built JS files, static resources) and what the HTML tag that references the static resource looks like, we can help you debug that more specifically.
In my case I solved my problem like this: in the parameter relative to the directory path I used path.resolve and in its first parameter I used __dirname as the first parameter and the relative path of the target directory as the second one.
app.get('/', express.static(path.resolve(__dirname, '../static/'))); –
I have a expressJs setup which looks like this:
// Imports...
const app: express.Application = express();
const port: number = 3001;
const listener = new StatementListenerAPI();
app.use('/listen', listener.getRouter());
app.use('/welcome', router);
if (fs.existsSync('./client')) {
// Running in prod environment with pre built client directory. Serve this.
app.use(express.static('./client'));
}
app.listen(port);
So I have some routers connected to the express app, and at the bottom I declare that the directory client should be served statically. This directory contains an index.html as well as lots of JS, CSS and PNG files. However, no matter which URL I try to access from the express server, it always shows the code of the index.html within the statically served directory. The references to the JS and CSS files used inside the index.html also just return the code of the index.html.
I am using ExpressJS 4.16.3
What am I doing wrong?
Edit: So technically it works if using __dirname + '/client' instead of ./client. What I am now getting is that, when making GET requests from e.g. Postman (therefore "hand-crafting" the HTTP requests), I am always getting the correct results. If I call the resources from within my web browser, it still always shows the website (resolves the index.html). However, now all resources like JS and CSS scripts are being resolved properly, so apperantly Chrome resolves those dependencies properly, I am just wondering why I am still getting the contents of index.html as result when requesting some of the assets or some of the express endpoints via Chrome. API calls via code are working fine, so its only why manual chrome requests show this weird behaviour, at this point I am only asking out of curiosity.
Answer to your original question:
The path supplied to express.static should be relative to the directory from where you launch your node process or an absolute path. To be safe construct an absolute path (ie from the current directory or file). For example:
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/client'));
Regarding your followup question:
I assume this is because Chrome uses heavy caching and it thinks this folder should return the html file. You can try and reset all caches in Chrome, or just for the page.
I have a NodeJS project setup. I want to integrate my static html pages into it. Where can I do it ?
Thank you !
To expose static html, create a directory named "public" that lives next to your primary application file (app.js).
Assuming you are using the express framework, you can expose this directory by using the following code:
app.use(express.static(__dirname + "/public"));
where
var app = express();
Subsequently, any request to "/{something}" will attempt to resolve a route to a static file in your public directory, so if you had a file named {something} in that directory it would get served right up.
I have a public/ directory that I have set up as containing static files in express:
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));
It has an images directory in it
/public/images
And that has a deep subtree of various images. If I put in the full path to the image, it loads with no problem.
http://mysite.com/images/tiles/grass.png
When I just go to a url such as
http://mysite.com/images/tiles/
It just gives me the error that it gives when it tries to find a non-static path, but the path doesn't exist.
How can I make it so all directories in my static path show something similar to the way Apache shows the navigable directory structure?
Because what you're requesting when putting
http://mysite.com/images/tiles/
is a directory listing request, and it seems that static middleware just serves files not directories. You have to use
app.use(express.directory(your_path));
app.use(express.static(your_path));
This will let you request the URIs you're talking about.
For Express 4 this looks a little different:
var directory = require('serve-index');
app.use(directory(your_path));
Check here for details:
https://github.com/expressjs/serve-index