simplest way to have Express serve a default page?

Question

I'm using this to have Node.js/Express setup as a rudimentary web server - it just serves a set of static pages without any other processing. I'd like it to always serve /default.html when a browser fetches the site without any filename.

var express = require("express"); var app = express(); var port = process.env.PORT || 5000;  app.configure(function(){   app.use(express.bodyParser()); });  app.use(express.logger());  app.use(express.static(__dirname ));  app.listen(port, function() {   console.log("Listening on " + port); }); 

I've tried using res.sendfile and res.redirect, but without much success; I'm obviously missing something as I end up with a 'has no method' error.

What would you say is the simplest way of achieving my goal?

Answer 1

I looked briefly for the best practices for serving a public folder and specifying the default page to serve. After reviewing the 'Express middleware' documentation, my solution looks like the following,

var express = require('express'); var app = express();  var options = {   index: "coming-soon.html" };  app.use('/', express.static('app', options));  var server = app.listen(8081, function () {   var host = server.address().address;   var port = server.address().port;    console.log('my app is listening at http://%s:%s', host, port); }); 

Answer 2

You could do something like this. Assuming its an html file that is relative to the .js file:

app.get('/', function(req, res){     res.sendfile('default.html', { root: __dirname + "/relative_path_of_file" } ); });