I am working on node js, where I have the following directories: C:\wamp64\www\Scrapper. In the Scrapper folder, I have:
/Controllers/main.js
/Public/index.html
/server.js
What I did is, I have included the main.js in the index.html as:
<script src="/Controllers/main.js"></script>
Also, I have declared these two folders as static in node js server.js file which is located in the main directory i.e. /Scrapper. When I run the app, it says:
http://localhost:8080/Controllers/main.js net::ERR_ABORTED 404 (Not Found)
The way I declared the static files in server.js is :
app.use(express.static(__dirname + "/Public"));
app.use(express.static(__dirname + "/Controllers"));
app.use(body_parser.json());
I don't know what the problem is. All I want is to include the main.js file in the index.html. It's a client site script which should run within that folder.
For example you have declared a static folder like
app.use(express.static(`${__dirname}/assets`))
and inside assets, you have images folder
then you can access the files i.e.
localhost:8080/images/koala-1550238924102.jpg
and in your case you need to do this
localhost:8080/main.js
You can look in detail here.
app.use(express.static(__dirname + "/Public"));
app.use('controllers', express.static(__dirname + "/Controllers"));
Access files;
http://localhost:<port>/index.html
http://localhost:<port>/controllers/main.js
const publicStaticDirPath = path.join(__dirname, '../public');
app.use(express.static.(publicStaticDirPath));
I have a test node.js/angular app that uses the yeoman angular-generator. However, I am having problems serving back the rendered .js files from the original .coffee files.
The js files are being rendered and saved to APP_ROOT/.tmp, but any requests for the js files results in a 404.
What is needed (within the Gruntfile?) to allow for the js files to be returned?
Thanks for the help.
Things are working now. The end fix was something was to add an additional static middleware to the app.js file, which was something I had already tried, but it is possible that the path was off causing the fix not to work.
app.js
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, '.tmp')));
When I first added ~line 2 the app.js folder was moved into the app_root/server folder with the following
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, '..', '.tmp')));
which for some reason wasn't working. That teaches me for moving files around
Since Twitter Bootstrap 2 is out, I wanted to integrate that into my Node.js project. Unfortunately, there's something wrong with the less compiler and I can't get it to work. I put all files into the public folder and set up a new project with express -c less newproj. and added the lines for less
less = require('less');
app.use(express.compiler({ src: __dirname + '/public', enable: ['less'] }));
All Node tells me is:
Express server listening on port 3000 in development mode
undefined
On the client side I get a 500 (Internal Server Error) for the bootstrap.css file, which should be compiled by lessc.
lessc bootstrap.less
Works fine.
Anybody knows how to solve the issue?
For posterity, this has changed a lot in recent Express:
app.use(require('less-middleware')({ src: __dirname + '/public' }));
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));
// This is just boilerplate you should already have
app.use(express.bodyParser());
app.use(express.methodOverride());
app.use(app.router);
Ok, here is what I have found for you.
First you need both the compiler and the static middleware. The compiler compiles your less and recompiles on changes, the static middleware does the actual serving of the css
app.use(express.compiler({ src : __dirname + '/public', enable: ['less']}));
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));
Second, for some reason when the compiler runs it is losing the current path information, so it can't find the includes. So I had to go through the bootstrap.css and add the path to each import.
#import "/public/stylesheets/reset.less";
This is clearly odd, I am going to dig into it further.
Edit: While odd, a deep look through the code shows me no simple way around it. A bit more searching found this pull request on the connect repo https://github.com/senchalabs/connect/pull/174 which offers a fix for this, but the devs don't seem to want it.
There are also some workarounds in that thread, but it seems the best idea is to absolute path your includes.
app.js:
app.use(express.compiler({ src: __dirname + '/public', enable: ['less']}));
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));
In my jade view:
link(rel="stylesheet", type="text/css", href='/app/stylesheets/app.less)
I've got less file in:
public/app/stylesheets/app.less
When I request the page I've got in html head:
<link href="/app/stylesheets/app.less" type="text/css" rel="stylesheet">
And noting in server console.
1) So Why does express even doesn't try to compile app.less? Should it?
2) If everything right: should link in htm be
<link href="/app/stylesheets/**app.less**" ... >
or express should change the file's extension while render?
<link href="/app/stylesheets/**app.css**" ... >
?
It seems that compiler() was removed from connect and it won't be supported anymore, according to TJ Holowaychuck (creator of Connect & Express):
https://github.com/visionmedia/express/issues/877
Update 2013-01-16
As of Express 3.0.0 the framework now includes less-middleware instead of the compiler middleware that used to be in Connect. It works much the same way as the old middleware.
To add it to an existing project, add less-middleware to your package.json and run npm install then add the following to your config:
app.use(require('less-middleware')({ src: __dirname + '/public' }));
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));
In your Jade template you reference it as a normal CSS file:
link(rel='stylesheet', type='text/css', href='css/styles.css')
Your directory structure will look something like this:
myapp
+-public
+-css
+-styles.less
less-middleware will look for .less files that have the same name as the .css file that was requested. If it finds one it will compile it and server the resulting CSS.
You'll probably want to exclude compiled CSS files from your source control. If you're using Git you can add .css to your .gitignore file.
You can get LESS compiling to work via middleware, the same way that Stylus currently works.
Edit: Instead of trying to get the [pull request][0] into the main LESS repository it was decided to just do it as a separate package.
Here is how you can use the LESS.js middleware:
var lessMiddleware = require('less-middleware');
var app = express.createServer();
app.configure(function () {
// Other configuration here...
app.use(lessMiddleware({
src: __dirname + '/public',
compress: true
}));
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));
});
In your jade file you should then be able to use the reference to the css file:
link(rel="stylesheet", type='text/css', href='/app/stylesheets/app.css')
I've reduced my code to the simplest express-js app I could make:
var express = require("express"),
app = express.createServer();
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/styles'));
app.listen(3001);
My directory look like this:
static_file.js
/styles
default.css
Yet when I access http://localhost:3001/styles/default.css I get the following error:
Cannot GET / styles /
default.css
I'm using express 2.3.3 and node 0.4.7. What am I doing wrong?
Try http://localhost:3001/default.css.
To have /styles in your request URL, use:
app.use("/styles", express.static(__dirname + '/styles'));
Look at the examples on this page:
//Serve static content for the app from the "public" directory in the application directory.
// GET /style.css etc
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));
// Mount the middleware at "/static" to serve static content only when their request path is prefixed with "/static".
// GET /static/style.css etc.
app.use('/static', express.static(__dirname + '/public'));
I have the same problem. I have resolved the problem with following code:
app.use('/img',express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public/images')));
app.use('/js',express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public/javascripts')));
app.use('/css',express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public/stylesheets')));
Static request example:
http://pruebaexpress.lite.c9.io/js/socket.io.js
I need a more simple solution. Does it exist?
This work for me:
app.use('*/css',express.static('public/css'));
app.use('*/js',express.static('public/js'));
app.use('*/images',express.static('public/images'));
default.css should be available at http://localhost:3001/default.css
The styles in app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/styles')); just tells express to look in the styles directory for a static file to serve. It doesn't (confusingly) then form part of the path it is available on.
In your server.js :
var express = require("express");
var app = express();
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));
You have declared express and app separately, create a folder named 'public' or as you like, and yet you can access to these folder. In your template src, you have added the relative path from /public (or the name of your folder destiny to static files). Beware of the bars on the routes.
I am using Bootstrap CSS, JS and Fonts in my application. I created a folder called asset in root directory of the app and place all these folder inside it. Then in server file added following line:
app.use("/asset",express.static("asset"));
This line enables me to load the files that are in the asset directory from the /asset path prefix like: http://localhost:3000/asset/css/bootstrap.min.css.
Now in the views I can simply include CSS and JS like below:
<link href="/asset/css/bootstrap.min.css" rel="stylesheet">
What worked for me is:
Instead of writing app.use(express.static(__dirname + 'public/images')); in your app.js
Simply write
app.use(express.static('public/images'));
i.e remove the root directory name in the path. And then you can use the static path effectively in other js files, For example:
<img src="/images/misc/background.jpg">
Hope this helps :)
to serve static files (css,images,js files)just two steps:
pass the directory of css files to built in middleware express.static
var express = require('express');
var app = express();
/*public is folder in my project directory contains three folders
css,image,js
*/
//css =>folder contains css file
//image=>folder contains images
//js =>folder contains javascript files
app.use(express.static( 'public/css'));
to access css files or images just type in url http://localhost:port/filename.css ex:http://localhost:8081/bootstrap.css
note: to link css files to html just type<link href="file_name.css" rel="stylesheet">
if i write this code
var express = require('express');
var app = express();
app.use('/css',express.static( 'public/css'));
to access the static files just type in url:localhost:port/css/filename.css
ex:http://localhost:8081/css/bootstrap.css
note to link css files with html just add the following line
<link href="css/file_name.css" rel="stylesheet">
this one worked for me
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));
app.use('/img',express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public/images')));
app.use('/shopping-cart/javascripts',express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public/javascripts')));
app.use('/shopping-cart/stylesheets',express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public/stylesheets')));
app.use('/user/stylesheets',express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public/stylesheets')));
app.use('/user/javascripts',express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public/javascripts')));
Webpack makes things awkward
As a supplement to all the other already existing solutions:
First things first: If you base the paths of your files and directories on the cwd (current working directory), things should work as usual, as the cwd is the folder where you were when you started node (or npm start, yarn run etc).
However...
If you are using webpack, __dirname behavior will be very different, depending on your node.__dirname settings, and your webpack version:
In Webpack v4, the default behavior for __dirname is just /, as documented here.
In this case, you usually want to add this to your config which makes it act like the default in v5, that is __filename and __dirname now behave as-is but for the output file:
module.exports = {
// ...
node: {
// generate actual output file information
// see: https://webpack.js.org/configuration/node/#node__filename
__dirname: false,
__filename: false,
}
};
This has also been discussed here.
In Webpack v5, per the documentation here, the default is already for __filename and __dirname to behave as-is but for the output file, thereby achieving the same result as the config change for v4.
Example
For example, let's say:
you want to add the static public folder
it is located next to your output (usually dist) folder, and you have no sub-folders in dist, it's probably going to look like this
const ServerRoot = path.resolve(__dirname /** dist */, '..');
// ...
app.use(express.static(path.join(ServerRoot, 'public'))
(important: again, this is independent of where your source file is, only looks at where your output files are!)
More advanced Webpack scenarios
Things get more complicated if you have multiple entry points in different output directories, as the __dirname for the same file might be different for output file (that is each file in entry), depending on the location of the output file that this source file was merged into, and what's worse, the same source file might be merged into multiple different output files.
You probably want to avoid this kind of scenario scenario, or, if you cannot avoid it, use Webpack to manage and infuse the correct paths for you, possibly via the DefinePlugin or the EnvironmentPlugin.
The problem with serving __dirname is that __dirname returns the path of the current file, not the project's file.
Also, if you use a dynamic header, each page will look for the static files in a different path and it won't work.
The best, for me, is to substitute __dirname for process.cwd() which ALWAYS donates the path to the project file.
app.use(express.static(process.cwd() + '/public'));
And in your project:
link rel="stylesheet" href="/styles/default.css"
See: What's the difference between process.cwd() vs __dirname?
I was using
app.use(express.static('public'))
When there was no file in the public folder with name index.html.
I was getting the following error in the browser:
"Cannot GET /"
When I renamed the file to 'index.html', it works fine.
Try accessing it with http://localhost:3001/default.css.
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/styles'));
You are actually giving it the name of folder i.e. styles not your suburl.
I find my css file and add a route to it:
app.get('/css/MyCSS.css', function(req, res){
res.sendFile(__dirname + '/public/css/MyCSS.css');
});
Then it seems to work.
if your setup
myApp
|
|__ public
| |
| |__ stylesheets
| | |
| | |__ style.css
| |
| |___ img
| |
| |__ logo.png
|
|__ app.js
then,
put in app.js
app.use('/static', express.static('public'));
and refer to your style.css: (in some .pug file):
link(rel='stylesheet', href='/static/stylesheets/style.css')
Try './public' instead of __dirname + '/public'.
Similarly, try process.cwd() + '/public'.
Sometimes we lose track of the directories we are working with, its good to avoid assuming that files are located where we are telling express where they are.
Similarly, avoid assuming that in the depths of dependencies the path is being interpreted the same way at every level.
app.use(express.static(__dirname+'/'));
This worked for me, I tried using a public directory but it didn't work.
But in this case, we give access to the whole static files in the directory, hope it helps!
In addition to above, make sure the static file path begins with / (ex... /assets/css)... to serve static files in any directory above the main directory (/main)
Create a folder with 'public' name in Nodejs project
folder.
Put index.html file into of Nodejs project folder.
Put all script and css file into public
folder.
Use app.use( express.static('public'));
and in index.html correct path of scripts to <script type="text/javascript" src="/javasrc/example.js"></script>
And Now all things work fine.
static directory
check the above image(static directory) for dir structure
const publicDirectoryPath = path.join(__dirname,'../public')
app.use(express.static(publicDirectoryPath))
// or
app.use("/", express.static(publicDirectoryPath))
app.use((req, res, next) => {
res.sendFile(path.join(publicDirectoryPath,'index.html'))
In your nodejs file
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
app.use('/static', express.static('path_to_static_folder'));
In your pug file
...
script(type="text/javascript", src="static/your_javascript_filename")
...
Note the "static" word. It must be same in nodejs file and pug file.
i just try this code and working
const exp = require('express');
const app = exp();
app.use(exp.static("public"));
and working,
before (not working) :
const express = require('express');
const app = express();
app.use(express.static("public"));
just try