how to serve static file in node.js? - upload

Question

in my app user can upload images to server,and i put the uploaded file in upload folder like this
public
upload
but when i serve the
<img src='upload/image.jpg'/>
there is a 404 error.
i use express and use the
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));
does it mean i have to put all the uploaded in the public folder, what if there is so many images that the hard drive can not hold, can't i put the rest in a another server?

Answer 1

No you don't have to put all uploaded files to public folder.
Express allows to configure multiple middle-ware so you can add one more middle-ware to serve static content from the desired directory.
If you want directory to be specified in Url path then you can use directory mount feature like this !!
app.use('/upload',express.static(__dirname + '/upload'));
Ofcouse you can use other server to store uploaded files and you can retrieve those file by proxing request to it.
app.get('/upload/:fileName',function(req,res) {
var options = {
port: 80,
method : 'GET',
hostname : "localhost",
path : "/upload/" + req.params.fileName
};
var req = http.request(options,function(response) {
response.pipe(res);
});
req.on('error',function(err) {
res.statusCode = 404;
res.end("Error : file not found");
});
req.end();
});
This code will work not only when uploaded files are stored in the original server but also if you have files on some other server too !!

Answer 2

You can put the images in ./public/upload

Answer 3

Try using this:
<img src='/upload/image.jpg'/>
Notice the slash before upload. It could be that the problem isn't where you save the files, but rather how you're referencing them. If the page with the img tag isn't in your root directory, then the relative url upload/image.jpg won't work. You need to use /upload/image.jpg.

Answer 4

If you
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));
and ./public contains:
/img.png
/img2.png
/logo.png
yourapp.com/img.png will be img.png.
If you want yourapp.com/img.png to be a 404 and yourapp.com/public/img.png to be img.png, you need to replace
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));
with
app.use("/public",express.static(__dirname + '/public'));