index.html not invoking javascript file

Question

I'm making a simple client/server connection via node.js modules and a simple HTML page.

the html page is this:

<script type="text/javascript" src="index.js"></script>

Where the index.js file in the same directory is this:

alert("hello!");

This works fine when I manually click on the html page, but when I invoke it using my app.js:

var express = require("express");
var app = express();
var server = require('http').Server(app);

app.get('/', function (req, res) {
    res.sendFile(__dirname + '/web/index.html');
});
app.use('/web', express.static(__dirname + '/web'));
server.listen(2000); 

console.log('Started Server!');

by calling

node app.js

it does not show the alert when the HTML page loads. I just installed node.js and installed the node express dependencies in this app after I called "node init" on the project.

Also, for more clarification, I can do <script> alert("hello!"); </script> in the index.html and the alert will show up on the node server. I just don't know why I can't do the same if I call the script source — Kevin Hu
– Kevin Hu, Commented Jun 10, 2017 at 20:47
The script is in the same directory as the index.html file. I don't know what you mean by "script loading from the server"? — Kevin Hu
– Kevin Hu, Commented Jun 10, 2017 at 20:52
Look at the network tab on your client and see the path that is being requested for the index.js file. You're likely getting a 404 for the requested resource. I bet it's requesting localhost:2000/index.js which corresponds to nothing on your server. — Shadowfool
– Shadowfool, Commented Jun 10, 2017 at 20:59
You're right, its 404, but why would this be the case? I have it in my app.js to load items from the /web directory? — Kevin Hu
– Kevin Hu, Commented Jun 10, 2017 at 21:07

smhrjn · Accepted Answer · 2017-06-10 21:07:02Z

2

The path for index.js and static folder does not match. Therfore it fails to load index.js.

This should work:

app.use('/', express.static(__dirname + '/web'));
server.listen(2000);

answered Jun 10, 2017 at 21:07

smhrjn

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2 Comments

Kevin Hu Over a year ago

Thank you! I should probably read up on how express works too!

smhrjn Over a year ago

You're welcome. You can also use app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/web'));, without any route, if it is supposed to work for all routes.

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