So we know how to send back a simple message. But what if you want to send back a whole HTML page, or an image?
Things like HTML files, images etc are known as static assets. If you want your server to "serve" static assets back to the browser, you need to do something different than just using the res.send() method.
To be able to send any file from the server we need a special, built-in middleware function that comes with Express: express.static(). Read more about it here.
Say we want to serve all the static assets in our "public" folder. The express.static() function will look like this:
app.use(express.static("public"));Delete all your app.get endpoint functions, and replace them with the line of code above. Restart your server, refresh your browser and see what happens! If you see a Node Girls page, then your static assets have been successfully served.
| Keyword | Explanation |
|---|---|
| static assets | Files such as HTML, CSS and JavaScript documents or images that you want to appear in the browser. |
| middleware | A function (or functions) that are invoked by Express before your final request handler is executed. Middleware sits between a raw request and its final intended route. |
use() |
The method that tells Express to use a certain piece of middleware. |
express.static() |
The built-in Express middleware function that makes it possible to serve static assets. |