Receiving 'Error: Cannot find module' using browserify, gulp, react.js

Question

So I've been playing around with React.js, gulp and browserify. Everything works great until I try to require a module in my main.js file. I am requiring components/modules in other files with no problem (see below), but when I try to require one in my main.js file, I receive the following error when running gulp serve:

Error: Cannot find module './components/Feed' from '/Users/kevin/Documents/MyWork/web/react/app/src/js' at /Users/kevin/Documents/MyWork/web/react/node_modules/browserify/node_modules/resolve/lib/async.js:55:21 at load (/Users/kevin/Documents/MyWork/web/react/node_modules/browserify/node_modules/resolve/lib/async.js:69:43) at onex (/Users/kevin/Documents/MyWork/web/react/node_modules/browserify/node_modules/resolve/lib/async.js:92:31) at /Users/kevin/Documents/MyWork/web/react/node_modules/browserify/node_modules/resolve/lib/async.js:22:47 at Object.oncomplete (fs.js:107:15)

If I remove the require (for Feed.js) statement from main.js, everything compiles and gets put in the appropriate dist folder and runs fine (except for react.js complaining about a missing module, of course).

Firstly, my folder structure looks like this:

app
│-- gulpfile.js
│-- package.json
│
└───src
│   │
│   ├───js
│       │-- main.js
│       └───components
│            │-- Feed.js
│            │-- FeedList.js
│            │-- FeedItem.js
│            │-- FeedForm.js
│            │-- ShowAddButton.js
│            └
│   
└───dist

My gulpfile looks like this:

var gulp = require('gulp'),
    connect = require('gulp-connect'),
    open = require("gulp-open"),
    browserify = require('browserify'),
    reactify = require('reactify'),
    source = require("vinyl-source-stream"),
    concat = require('gulp-concat'),
    port = process.env.port || 3031;

// browserify and transform JSX
gulp.task('browserify', function() {
    var b = browserify();
    b.transform(reactify);
    b.add('./app/src/js/main.js');
    return b.bundle()
        .pipe(source('main.js'))
        .pipe(gulp.dest('./app/dist/js'));
});

// launch browser in a port
gulp.task('open', function(){
    var options = {
        url: 'http://localhost:' + port,
    };
    gulp.src('./app/index.html')
    .pipe(open('', options));
});

// live reload server
gulp.task('connect', function() {
    connect.server({
        root: 'app',
        port: port,
        livereload: true
    });
});

// live reload js
gulp.task('js', function () {
    gulp.src('./app/dist/**/*.js')
        .pipe(connect.reload());
});

// live reload html
gulp.task('html', function () {
    gulp.src('./app/*.html')
    .pipe(connect.reload());
});

// watch files for live reload
gulp.task('watch', function() {
    gulp.watch('app/dist/js/*.js', ['js']);
    gulp.watch('app/index.html', ['html']);
    gulp.watch('app/src/js/**/*.js', ['browserify']);
});

gulp.task('default', ['browserify']);

gulp.task('serve', ['browserify', 'connect', 'open', 'watch']);

My main.js file looks like this:

var React = require('react'),
    Feed = require('./components/Feed');

React.renderComponent(
    <Feed />,
    document.getElementById('app')
);

The Feed.js file looks like:

var React = require('react');
var FeedForm = require('./FeedForm');
var ShowAddButton = require('./ShowAddButton');
var FeedForm = require('./FeedForm');
var FeedList = require('./FeedList');

var Feed = React.createClass({

    getInitialState: function() {
        var FEED_ITEMS = [
            { key: '1', title: 'Just something', description: 'Something else', voteCount: 49 },
            { key: '2', title: 'Some more stuff', description: 'Yeah!', voteCount: 34 },
            { key: '3', title: 'Tea is good', description: 'yepp again', voteCount: 15 },
        ];

        return {
            items: FEED_ITEMS
        };
    },

    render: function() {
        return (
            <div>
                <div className="container">
                    <ShowAddButton />
                </div>

                <FeedForm />

                <br />
                <br />

                <FeedList items={this.state.items} />
            </div>
        );
    }

});

module.exports = Feed;

I'm sure I'm overlooking something really simple...but I've been at this for hours and can't seem to crack it. Any help would be greatly appreciated. (Obviously I'm not posting the code for the other components for the sake of being as brief as possible...but they aren't the problem).

Can you please create a github repo with all the code? I created a project with the code you provided and it built correctly. — SteveLacy
@SteveLacy Alright...github repo is here github.com/kevindeleon/react-test This is basically some test code from a lesson I found online, but that's the exact code that I am running on my system that is failing for me. OS X yosemite, if it makes any difference. — kevindeleon
@SteveLacy -- also...obviously one would need to run npm i to install all needed node_modules....but I assume anyone reading this already likely knows that. — kevindeleon

loganfsmyth loganfsmyth · Accepted Answer · 2015-03-01T02:42:38

Your filenames are not what you think they are. Note this:

$ find app -type f | awk '{print "_"$0"_"}'
_app/dist/js/main.js_
_app/index.html_
_app/src/js/components/Feed.js _
_app/src/js/components/FeedForm.js _
_app/src/js/components/FeedItem.js_
_app/src/js/components/FeedList.js_
_app/src/js/components/ShowAddButton.js_
_app/src/js/main.js_

Your Feed.js file is actually Feed.js<SPACE>. Same for FeedForm.js. Renaming them makes your example repo build fine.

Receiving 'Error: Cannot find module' using browserify, gulp, react.js

3 Answers