NodeJS Express installation in zsh not found.....symlink issue?

Question

I am attempting to install Express using the npm package manager. It seems to successfully install, but then when I try to run "express xxxxx" it always says the command is not found.

Here is the output of my install

$ sudo npm install -g express
npm http GET https://registry.npmjs.org/express
npm http 304 https://registry.npmjs.org/express
npm http GET https://registry.npmjs.org/express/4.0.0
........
npm http 304 https://registry.npmjs.org/fresh/0.2.0
express@4.0.0 /usr/local/lib/node_modules/express
├── methods@0.1.0
├── parseurl@1.0.1
├── merge-descriptors@0.0.2
├── utils-merge@1.0.0
├── escape-html@1.0.1
├── debug@0.8.0
├── cookie-signature@1.0.3
├── fresh@0.2.2
├── range-parser@1.0.0
├── qs@0.6.6
├── buffer-crc32@0.2.1
├── cookie@0.1.0
├── path-to-regexp@0.1.2
├── send@0.2.0 (mime@1.2.11)
├── type-is@1.0.0 (mime@1.2.11)
├── accepts@1.0.0 (negotiator@0.3.0, mime@1.2.11)
└── serve-static@1.0.1 (send@0.1.4)

Running "which express" leads to an express not found.

Interestingly enough, if I try to install an older version of express using:

sudo npm install -g express@2.5.8

everything works fine.

The only difference is this line, which isn't present in the output above:

   /usr/local/bin/express -> /usr/local/lib/node_modules/express/bin/express

It looks like it is symlinking something, but I am a bit of a novice at UNIX so I don't really know how to fix this issue.

Additional Notes: I installed node and npm from the package on the official nodejs website. I am running a Mavericks OS.

I have searched throughout the forums, and none of the solutions I have found, e.g. updating the path, appending the "-g" flag, or other solutions have worked for me.

Answer 1

Using express as a global executable seems to be deprecated. Use npm install -g express-generator@3 instead, according to the docs.