__dirname is not working in node js with webpack bundling

Question

My current directory is

D:\bkp\Programming\TestWorks\nodejs\testApp

but when i am using __dirname and trying to show a file with express server it gives me this error

Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, stat 'D:\views\index.html'

my code for that is

res.sendFile(__dirname + 'views/index.html');

when i am bundling it with webpack and run the bundle file then this happens. Otherwise if i just run the normal app.js file it works fine. Help would be appreciated.

score 23 · Accepted Answer · answered Apr 20 '17 at 18:28

23

This is because webpack can handle __dirname (and other node specific things) in different ways. If you want it to behave like normal, use this in your webpack config:

{
    node: {
        __dirname: false
    }
}

See: https://webpack.js.org/configuration/node/

answered Apr 20 '17 at 18:28

0xRm

1,259
8
11

Some of the google client libs are requiring dirname to be set to true in webpack.config. But for reading mail templates from the file system, i would like dirname to be the output dir. Is there a way to set it only for some node modules? My cur workaround is using process.cwd() and then /dist for the output dir. But i do not really like that – juliushuck Apr 05 '21 at 16:16

score 12 · Answer 2 · answered Apr 20 '17 at 18:30

The __dirname is set to / by webpack, that's why you end up with /views/index.html which is the root of your file system, that happens to be D:\ in your case. You can set node.dirname to false in your webpack config to not inject it and defer it to runtime. Keep in mind that __dirname will refer to the location of the script you're executing, that means the location of the bundle, not the original source.

node: {
  __dirname: false
}

score 3 · Answer 3 · answered Mar 14 '21 at 15:20

3

"webpack": "^5.24.4" the default value depends on the target configuration property:

target: 'web' => __dirname = '/'

target: 'node' => __dirname = 'the full path of the output directory'

It can be adjusted using node configuration property, see https://webpack.js.org/configuration/node/#node__dirname

answered Mar 14 '21 at 15:20

tananyGeek

429
4
4

1

That shoul be marked as the best answer IMO (at least for webpack 5) – Sergio Mazzoleni Jul 24 '23 at 13:02

__dirname is not working in node js with webpack bundling

3 Answers3

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