Starting Node.js Express application

Question

I created an application with

$ express -c stylus express_example

I can start my server with

$ npm start

but

$ node app.js

&

$ nodemon app.js

don't seem to work. I don't get any error messages though, terminal just goes to the next line. e.g.

$ node app.js
$

This is my bin/www file

#!/usr/bin/env node
var debug = require('debug')('my-application');
var app = require('../app');

app.set('port', process.env.PORT || 3000);

var server = app.listen(app.get('port'), function() {
    debug('Express server listening on port ' + server.address().port);
});

and my app.js file

var express = require('express');
var path = require('path');
var favicon = require('static-favicon');
var logger = require('morgan');
var cookieParser = require('cookie-parser');
var bodyParser = require('body-parser');

var routes = require('./routes/index');
var users = require('./routes/users');

var app = express();

// view engine setup
app.set('views', path.join(__dirname, 'views'));
app.set('view engine', 'jade');

app.use(favicon());
app.use(logger('dev'));
app.use(bodyParser.json());
app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded());
app.use(cookieParser());
app.use(require('stylus').middleware(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));

app.use('/', routes);
app.use('/users', users);

/// catch 404 and forwarding to error handler
app.use(function(req, res, next) {
    var err = new Error('Not Found');
    err.status = 404;
    next(err);
});

/// error handlers

// development error handler
// will print stacktrace
if (app.get('env') === 'development') {
    app.use(function(err, req, res, next) {
        res.status(err.status || 500);
        res.render('error', {
            message: err.message,
            error: err
        });
    });
}

// production error handler
// no stacktraces leaked to user
app.use(function(err, req, res, next) {
    res.status(err.status || 500);
    res.render('error', {
        message: err.message,
        error: {}
    });
});

module.exports = app;

Answer 1

You have in your package.json file a property where you can point out the entry point of your application. For example:

"scripts": {
  "start": "node ./bin/www"
}