CODEWITHSUNDEEP
node.jsexpress
ellen zhu
ellen zhu

Reputation: 67

Path of the express

Why express command not found. Here is the path for express.

/usr/lib/node_modules/express

When I install the express, the terminal shows the path. I used

npm install -g express-generator  
npm install -g express

But when I run express, it doesn't work. In this directory, express is globally right? But why can't be found. I don't understand the logic.

Upvotes: 2

Views: 1323

Answers (1)

oznu
oznu

Reputation: 1694

You need to install express locally, rather than globally.

http://blog.nodejs.org/2011/03/23/npm-1-0-global-vs-local-installation

In general, the rule of thumb is:

  1. If you’re installing something that you want to use in your program, using require('whatever'), then install it locally, at the root of your project.
  2. If you’re installing something that you want to use in your shell, on the command line or something, install it globally, so that its binaries end up in your PATH environment variable.

Based on this, you want to install express-generator using the -g flag as you will use it as a command line tool, but you want to install express without this flag as it's a module you will want to require() it in your application.

Take a look at the installation guide:

http://expressjs.com/starter/generator.html

It says to install the express-generator module as a global module as you will use it as a command line utility to scaffold your new applications.

Once you have scaffolded an application using the express myapp command, you just have to run npm install in the myapp directory which will download the rest of the dependencies to your projects local ./node_modules directory. It does this by reading the contents of the generated package.json file.

Lesson to take away: Don't install with the -g flag unless the modules instruction guide explicitly says to do so.

Upvotes: 2

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