webpack + express + angular 4 error "Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, stat 'C:\public\index.html'

Question

Directory structure of my app -

- Project-root
 - client-side-angular-code // angular 4 code
 - public // generated angular 4 static assets including index.html
 - dist
    - bundle.js //generated bundle file by webpack for express code 
    - public //copied static assets from the ../public to dist/public by webpack
 - app.js //express app
 - webpack.config.js
 - package.json
 - .... other miscellaneous files and folders

Using angular "bg build" I am placing all the static assets into the public folder as described above at the root of my project. Now using an express app I am able to serve the static assets from public folder via the index.html and works fine when I run "node app.js" and browse to http://localhost:port relevant code here -

app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));
app.get('*', function (req, res) {


res.sendFile("./index.html", { root: path.join(__dirname, './public') })
})

But after I bundle the app.js for production deployment along with the remaining static assets in to the dist/public folder(where I am copying the static assets using the "CopyWebpackPlugin", if i try to run "node dist/bundle.js" and try to browse to http://localhost:port the same way as before, I get following error.

Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, stat 'C:\public\index.html' at Error (native)

As such I wanted to know why webpack is not taking it relative to where the bundle.js is and/or what am I doing wrong?

Relevant webpack config file

    var path = require("path");
const webpack = require('webpack');
var nodeExternals = require('webpack-node-externals');
var CopyWebpackPlugin = require('copy-webpack-plugin');
const CleanWebpackPlugin = require('clean-webpack-plugin');

    module.exports = {

  output: {
    filename: 'bundle.js',
    path: path.resolve(__dirname,"dist"),
    //path: __dirname + '/dist',
    publicPath : path.resolve(__dirname,"dist/")
  },
    entry: "./app",
    target: 'node',
    module: {
        rules: [
          { test: /\.json/, loader: "json-loader", exclude:/node_modules/,},
          {test: /\.ts(x?)$/, loader: 'babel-loader!ts-loader',exclude: /node_modules/,},
          { test: /\.css$/, loaders: ['to-string-loader', 'css-loader'] },
          { test: /\.html$/, loader: 'raw-loader' },
          {
            test: /\.(jsx|js)?$/,
            use: [{
              loader: "babel-loader",
              options: {
                cacheDirectory: true,
                presets: ['es2015'] // Transpiles JSX and ES6
              }
            }]
          }
        ],
      },
    resolve: {
        extensions: ['.js', '.ts', '.html', '.css']
    },
    plugins: [
        new CopyWebpackPlugin([
            {from:'public',to:'public'} 
        ]),
        new CleanWebpackPlugin(['dist']),
    ]
};

Here is my package.json entries for version of webpack(not all modules are in use as we can see from the webpack config js above) -

 "clean-webpack-plugin": "^0.1.19",
    "copy-webpack-plugin": "^4.5.1",
    "css-loader": "^0.28.11",
    "html-loader": "^0.5.5",
    "html-webpack-plugin": "^3.2.0",
    "raw-loader": "^0.5.1",
    "webpack": "^4.6.0",
    "webpack-cli": "^2.0.15",
    "webpack-dev-middleware": "^3.1.3",
    "webpack-hot-middleware": "^2.22.1",
    "webpack-node-externals": "^1.7.2"

Any help or suggestion is much appreciated !!

Answering my own question after figured out the issue. Had to change to this - res.sendFile(process.cwd()+"./public/index.html"); — Biswajit

Biswajit Biswajit · Accepted Answer · 2018-04-28T17:11:48

Answering my own question after figured out the issue. Had to change to this - res.sendFile(process.cwd()+"./public/index.html");

webpack + express + angular 4 error "Error: ENOENT: no such file or directory, stat 'C:\public\index.html'

1 Answers