Uncaught ReferenceError: process is not defined

Question

I am using node.js to create a web application. When I run the application (either by opening index.html on the browser or using the command "npm start" on the terminal) I get two errors:

Uncaught ReferenceError: process is not defined

Uncaught ReferenceError: require is not defined

I solved the "require is not defined" error by specifically including in my index.html head tag the link to this script, where the require function is defined. However, I cannot find something similar for the process function.

My question is doublefold:

1. Why do built-in node.js modules need to be re-defined? Why are they not recognized as they are, that is "built-in modules"? Doesn't the term "built-in module" mean that a module need not be redefined externaly/second-handedly?

2. Is there a way to solve this problem? My script is very simple, I am just trying to use a basic function of node.js, so I cannot figure out what errors I might have done.

If anyone has come about this problem and has found a way around it or a reason this happens, you would be of great help.

Answer 1

Node.js code must be run by the node process, not the browser (the code must run in the server).

To run the code, you must run the command:

node server.js 

And then you can access your server from a browser by typing "http://localhost:8080", for example. You must have a file server.js (or whatever) with the server code you want (in this case, creating a web server in port 8080).

You can follow this easy example, using express as http server module: http://expressjs.com/starter/hello-world.html