Node/Express: Trying to send static JSON file to API endpoint

debugcn Published at Dev

Bennett Adams

I am working on a MEAN stack app, and I'm trying to create a couple of API endpoints that the Angular client can $http.get, with simple JSON files populated with dummy data.

Here's the orders.json file I'm trying to test it with:

[
  {
    "order_status":"Shipped",
    "order_qty":30
  },
  {
    "order_status":"Shipped",
    "order_qty":6
  }
]

For example, the api route to $http.get:

apiRouter.get('/:fileName', queries.getStaticJSONFileForDevelopment);

But when I try to use express's sendFile method with a local .json file, like orders.json:

queries.js:

exports.getStaticJSONFile = function(req, res) {

  var fileName = req.params.fileName;
  console.log('path: ' + path.normalize(__dirname + '/' + fileName));

  res.sendFile(path.normalize(__dirname + '/' + fileName), function(err) {
    if (err) return res.send({ reason:error.toString() });
  });
};

The console.log tells me I'm pointed at the correct path to the file, but Postman delivers this error:

TypeError: undefined is not a function
at Object.exports.getStaticJSONFile [as handle] (path/to/queries.js:260:7)
// queries.js:260:7 points to the 's' in 'sendFile' above

However, when I just send the json data by itself:

res.send([{"order_status":"Shipped","order_qty":30},{"order_status":"Shipped","order_qty":6}]);

...the endpoint renders the data as you would expect. Am I trying to get the sendFile method to do something it's not meant to do, or is there something I'm missing? Thanks very much for any advice you may have!

num8er

If You want to read json file and response with json so You can try this:

var jsonfile = require('jsonfile');

exports.getStaticJSONFile = function(req, res) {

  var fileName = req.params.fileName;
  var file = path.normalize(__dirname + '/' + fileName);
  console.log('path: ' + file);

  jsonfile.readFile(file, function(err, obj) {
    if(err) {
      res.json({status: 'error', reason: err.toString()});
      return;
    }

    res.json(obj);
  });
};

Collected from the Internet

Please contact [email protected] to delete if infringement.