Configuring a Node JS App to Use NPM

Question

I have a really simple Node JS app and I'd like to include the Express JS framework. I've installed Express with NPM (and NPM with Homebrew) without any errors using:

brew install npm
npm install express

And my server.js file contains only:

var express = require('express');

When I run my application I get Error: Cannot find module 'express'. How can I tell my Node application to include the library?

Answer 1

You need to tell node where your libs are.

extract from http://nodejs.org/api.html

require.paths
An array of search paths for require(). This array can be modified to add custom paths.

Example: add a new path to the beginning of the search list

require.paths.unshift('/usr/local/node');

Answer 2

Here's a walkthrough of using npm's bundle command:

http://intridea.com/2010/8/24/using-npm-with-heroku-node-js?blog=company