ExpressJs - where express.static(__dirname) point to?

Question

var express = require(\'express\');
var app = express();
port = process.argv[2] || 8000;

app.configure(function () {
    app.use(
        \"/\", 
        express.static         


        

Answer 1

What does the app.use method do?.

Express has a Middleware which can be configured using app.configure where we can invoke use app.use(). Middleware is used by routes, lets take i called app.use(express.bodyParser()) which added this layer to my Middleware stack. This ensures that for all incoming requests the server parses the body which Middleware takes cares of. This happens because we added the layer to our Middleware .

http://www.senchalabs.org/connect/proto.html#app.use

What does the express.static method? and where does the __dirname points to?.

The code creates an Express server, adds the static Middleware and finally starts listening on port 3000 or provided port.

app.use(
     "/",
     express.static(__dirname)
);

The above code is equivalent to below, which you make you understand.

app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/')); 

The static middleware handles serving up the content from a directory. In this case the 'root' directory is served up and any content (HTML, CSS, JavaScript) will be available. This means if the root directory looks like:

index.html
js - folder
css - folder

For more references on the same topic, below are stackoverflow links associated.

• Express app.use
• What does middleware and app.use actually mean in Expressjs?