How do I send a string alongside an error code with express?

Question

So when a login fails to validate, I currently respong with res.send(401). However I want to send a snippet of text or html along with the error code.

I tried this:

res.write('string');
res.send(401);

but threw an error and my server wouldn't start.

Answer 1

You're mixing Express methods with the native HTTP methods. Since Express' internally uses the native HTTP modules, you should use one or the other.

// Express
res.status(401);
res.send('string');
// or the shortcut method
res.send(401, 'string');

// HTTP
res.writeHead(401);
res.end('string');

Answer 2

From the examples in express docs

res.status(404).send('Sorry, we cannot find that!');
res.status(500).send({ error: 'something blew up' });