Running npm globally installed packages

Question

Can someone please explain how do node's globally installed behave. It is really confusing me. If I install a package (with executables) such as http-serverglobally I can run it with:

http-server

But if I do

node http-server

I get

module.js:339
    throw err;
    ^

Error: Cannot find module '/path/to/current/dir/http-server'
    at Function.Module._resolveFilename (module.js:337:15)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:287:25)
    at Function.Module.runMain (module.js:457:10)
    at startup (node.js:136:18)
    at node.js:972:3

I suspect my ternpackage in emacs is trying to run it with node hence breaking. Why is this happening? Why can't node find the path to it's own modules?

Answer 1

There are two ways installing packages: globally and locally.
Locally installed package files end up in your local node_modules (in your project folder where you called npm install some-package).
Globally installed package files end up in your system so they are available in command line, if globally installed packages provides executable then you can invoke it in command line directly some-package(without node), if it does not provide executable then you can use it in repl mode (node) like var package = require('some-package') and it is also available locally (inside your project folder even if you don't have it installed locally).