how can i render html file in node.js

Question

how can i render html file in node.js

i have tried to render html file but i got this error . i have login.html within public folder.how to render html file.thanks in advance.

my server side coding

var express = require('express');

var app = express();

app.configure(function(){

  app.set("view options", {layout: false});

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


 });

app.get('/', function(req, res) {

    res.render('login.html');

});

app.listen(8000)

Error: Failed to lookup view "login.html"

at Function.render (/home/aware/local/src/node_modules/express/lib/application.js:493:17)
at ServerResponse.render (/home/aware/local/src/node_modules/express/lib/response.js:753:7)
at /home/aware/local/src/health/demo2.js:17:9
at callbacks (/home/aware/local/src/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:161:37)
at param (/home/aware/local/src/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:135:11)
at pass (/home/aware/local/src/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:142:5)
at Router._dispatch (/home/aware/local/src/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:170:5)
at Object.router [as handle] (/home/aware/local/src/node_modules/express/lib/router/index.js:33:10)
at next (/home/aware/local/src/node_modules/express/node_modules/connect/lib/proto.js:199:15)
at resume (/home/aware/local/src/node_modules/express/node_modules/connect/lib/middleware/static.js:60:7)

javascript
html
node.js
render

Answer 1

The closest you can get to using html for node views is EJS (Embedded JavaScript)

This way you write your normal HTML, pass your data through node and display them using tags like: <%= var %>

http://embeddedjs.com/

https://github.com/visionmedia/ejs

Answer 2

The files you keep inside your public folder will not be rendered because they are set as static, so they will be served as is. All other files outside of this will be rendered. Remember to set the rendering engine.

Answer 3

I just came in contact with connect today & wanted to solve a simillar issue, serving a simple HTML file. In my case, I wanted to display a 404 when any previous middlewares hadn't finished the request.

I create a function, show404 and then you can do something like app.use(show404). Here's my CoffeScript for that mostly inspired in connect errorHandler source code.

show404 = (req, res, next) ->
    res.statusCode = 404
    res.setHeader 'Content-Type', 'text/html; charset=utf-8'
    html_path = require("path").resolve('.tmp/404.html')
    require('fs').readFile html_path, (err, data)->
        throw err if err
        console.log "DATA:", data
        res.end data