Browser automatically downloads PHP files

Question

Browser automatically downloads PHP files

i'm reading the book 'Node.js for PHP Developers'. I have created a NodeJS Web Server and it receives requests and gives response too. But whenever I access a PHP file to reroute it to a JS file (requirement it is), my browser automatically downloads the PHP file.

Here's my JS code, according to which it also downloads JS files(e.g. when I access localhost:1337/first.njs)

var http = require('http');
var url = require('url');
var file = require('./first.njs');

http.createServer(function(req, res) {
if(url.parse(req.url).pathname == 'first.php')
    file.serve(req, res);
else
    res.end('The file doesn\'t exist');
}).listen(1337, '127.0.0.1');

console.log('Server is running on 1337');

And here's my PHP file if it matters

<?php
  echo "ASD";
?>

I know it feels like a really dumb question, but I can't figure out why that happens.

Browsers tested: Chrome and Firefox.

UPDATE Couldn't figure out the exact problem neither could replicate the problem - but this is my latest code if anyone wants to reroute a requested PHP file to a JS file and serve it(the JS file)

var http = require('http');
var url = require('url');
var file = require('./first.njs');

http.createServer(function(req, res) {
if(url.parse(req.url).pathname == '/first.php')
    file.serve(req, res);
else
    res.end('File not found');
}).listen(1337, '127.0.0.1');

console.log('Server is running on 1337');

javascript
php
node.js

Answer 1

If you want to check if a PHP page can be rendered without actually rendering it to the page you can use an ajax request in JavaScript/jQuery.

    $.ajax({
        type: "POST",
        url: 'YOUR PHP FILE PATH',
        success: function (dataCheck) {
            // file was accessed
        }
    });

Inside your success function you can output that the PHP file was successfully accessed.

Answer 2

Once you get a better handle on node, you'll probably want to use expressjs, take a look at expressjs routing.

app.get('/first.php', function(req, res){
    res.send('You accessed first.php!');
});

If you then wanted to display the php, you could use php-node to render php in node.js.

Answer 3

It seems that you don't have Apache (or some other server) or PHP configured. The request has to go to the PHP script first. So you would have to hit localhost:80/file.php and then in the PHP script redirect to localhost:1337/file.js.

A better suggestion for what you want to do is actually reverse proxy from Apache to Node.js and then have Node.js read the path.