Displaying views in Node.js/Express - node.js

Question

I am following the peepcode (part 1) video tutorial on node.js, and I am getting stuck on the first few steps. When I try to go to http://localhost:3000/login, I get the following error:
500 Error: Failed to lookup view "/Users/dantang/Desktop/Programming/Node/basic server/hotpie/apps/authentication/views/login"
I'm guessing it is due to a typo, but I've tried changing the code several times and I can't figure out what is wrong. Would really appreciate it if someone could tell me what should I do? Thank you!
The github repo is https://github.com/tangbj/nodejs
Server.js
/**
* Module dependencies.
*/
require("coffee-script");
var express = require('express')
, http = require('http')
, path = require('path');
var app = express();
app.configure(function(){
app.set('port', process.env.PORT || 3000);
app.set('views', __dirname + '/views');
app.set('view engine', 'jade');
app.use(express.favicon());
app.use(express.logger('dev'));
app.use(express.bodyParser());
app.use(express.methodOverride());
app.use(app.router);
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));
});
app.configure('development', function(){
app.use(express.errorHandler());
});
//Routes
require('./apps/authentication/routes')(app);
http.createServer(app).listen(app.get('port'), function(){
console.log("Express server listening on port " + app.get('port'));
});
login.jade
form(action='/sessions', method='post')
label
| Username
input(type='text', name='user')
label
| Password
input(type='password', name='password')
input(type='submit', name='Submit')
routes.coffee
routes = (app) ->
app.get '/login', (req, res) ->
res.render "#{__dirname}/views/login",
title: 'Login'
stylesheet: 'login'
module.exports = routes
package.json
{
"name": "application-name",
"version": "0.0.1",
"private": true,
"dependencies": {
"express": "3.1.0",
"jade": "*",
"coffee-script": "~1.6.1"
}
}

Answer 1

There was something wrong with your login.jade file. Maybe some encoding problem. I created a newLogin.jade file, changed the render function and everything works fine. See the pull request at github.

Answer 2

It will be unable to find the path if you are using Windows which requires backslash instead of forward-slash in linux. So use path.join or path.normalize to get correct paths.
Try to change this in your routes.coffee
res.render "#{__dirname}/views/login",
to
res.render path.join(__dirname, "/views/login"),
and
app.set('views', __dirname + '/views');
to
app.set('views', path.join(__dirname + '../views'));
Otherwise verify the location of the directories/files.