express command not found in bash after installing it with npm

Question

just installed new ubuntu vm to test around with node installed things in this order:

node
mongodb-server
npm
express
mongoose

now, trying to create a new app i noticed express cannot be used in the shell. express -v returns express: command not found

i installed npm like this

curl http://npmjs.org/install.sh | sudo sh

and i installed express this way

npm install express

any ideas?

Solution 1

npm install express -g

You need to install it globally.

Npm 1.0 installs modules locally by default. So the bash executable lives in /node_modules/bin/. You can add that folder to PATH or you can just install express globally so that it's picked up by PATH

Solution 2

Starting from express 4.00 you also need to install express generator with:

npm install -g express-generator

Only after this will you be able to run express as a command!

For confirmation see: ExpressJS.com - Migrating to Express 4

Solution 3

I had this problem and was installing node via Homebrew. The problem was being caused by Homebrew.

So I did:

brew uninstall node

and then installed node using the installer on the nodejs.org site.

Then I ran:

npm install -g express

And voila no problems.

Solution 4

EDIT 2017-06-29: this answer is 6+ years old, but still gets votes/traffic. Instead (for any new users with problems) I'd trust both NODE_PATH official doc and its corresponding bit about REPL usage before this answer.

Quite similar to this issue, node was not finding my global express install, so a require('express') statement would fail.

What fixed this for me, when a global install wasn't being picked up by node was making sure NODE_PATH env. variable was is set correctly. On Ubuntu 11.04, with node version 0.5.0-pre, the paths me were:

NODE_PATH=/usr/local/lib/node_modules:/usr/local/lib/node

So, to clarify you might want to export the above env. variable, or you can just test the above values out by doing:

NODE_PATH=/usr/local/lib/node_modules:/usr/local/lib/node node ./you_app.js

Solution 5

With the release of Express 4.0.0 it looks like you need to do sudo npm install -g express-generator.

View more solutions

Comments

[Anja Ishmukhametova]

npm install -g express-generator , and cd myapp && npm install, expressjs.com/guide.html

[Edward M Smith]

You can also run scripts through npm by adding a "scripts" object to your package.json, and doing, "$ npm run-script scriptname". NPM adds the various bin directories in the local package repo to the path before running the script:

[hippietrail]

Windows doesn't have export. If you are referring to cygwin or mingw or something like that you should probably make it explicit.

[Gilman]

+1 to add the scripts object to package.json and use npm run-script scriptname - this keeps your global space clear and allows you to more accurately test your production environment when in dev.

[Tommz]

Finally! This should be accepted as good answer from now on. I even had express in my PATH variable and nothing was working. Thanks @Fazi.

[Mirko]

True, this is the only way

[michaelAdam]

Do you have any idea why this just wouldn't work for me? I run sudo npm install -g express-generator and it installs to usr/bin but I cannot use express. I type "express test" and nothing happens. It just returns to the next line.

[IQAndreas]

Although correct, how is this answer different from the answer already given by Fazi? stackoverflow.com/a/23266782/617937

[g07kore]

actually this is the best answer.

[s_h]

this should be the answer