running html in javascript server with node.js

Question

Here is my Javascript code...

var http = require ('http');
var fs = require('fs');

var port = '2405';

function send404Response(response){
  response.writeHead(404, {"Content_Type": "text/plain"});
  response.write("Error 404: Page not found!");
  response.end();  
}

function onRequest(request,response){
  if(request.method == 'GET' && request.url == '/'){
    response.writeHead(200, {"Content-Type": "text/html"});
    fs.createReadStream("./index.html").pipe(response);
  } else{
    send404Response(response);
  }
}

http.createServer(onRequest).listen(port);
console.log("Server is now running...");

When I write node /Users/SurajDayal/Documents/ass2/app.js in terminal and go to http://localhost:2405/ the terminal gives the error....

events.js:160 throw er; // Unhandled 'error' event ^

Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, open './index.html' at Error (native)

Directory structure:

Answer 1

You're probably starting your application from another directory. The relative path here to ./index.html is going to be relative to the current working directory.

If you want to go relative to the current running file, try __dirname:

fs.createReadStream(__dirname + '/index.html').pipe(response);

Also, if you need to do anything much more complicated for HTTP serving, check out Express. There's a nice module for your static files, but it also is a nice utility for routing and other common functions needed for HTTP apps.

Answer 2

Use

var path = require('path');
fs.createReadStream(path.join(__dirname, "index.html")

Your version does not work because the relative path is relative to the current working directory (the current directory in the console when you start node), not relative to the script file.

__dirname gives the directory of the current script file.