How to serve an angular2 app in a node.js server

Question

I'm building a web app using Angular2, to create the project I'm using Angular2 CLI webpack. Angular2 app uses other external packages also (Eg: Firebase). In addition to that, I need to create a REST API running on node.js

How can I serve both of Angular2 app and REST API using node.js server

Solution 1

1. Use ng build to build your app into build directory.
2. Create nodejs app to server the build directory as static content, then create route for api.

Following is an example of nodejs app using express that will serve the Angular2 app:

/*
Put content of angular2 build into 'public' folder.
*/
const html = __dirname + '/public';

const port = 4000;
const apiUrl = '/api';

// Express
const bodyParser = require('body-parser');
const compression = require('compression');
const express = require('express');
var app = express();

app
    .use(compression())
    .use(bodyParser.json())
    // Static content
    .use(express.static(html))
    // Default route
    .use(function(req, res) {
      res.sendFile(html + 'index.html');
    })
    // Start server
    .listen(port, function () {
        console.log('Port: ' + port);
        console.log('Html: ' + html);
    });

// continue with api code below ...

Solution 2

None of the answers worked properly for me. And if it worked, the Angular routing did not work on reload.
So this is how I solved it. Angular routing works even on full page reload.

function getRoot(request, response) {
   response.sendFile(path.resolve('./public/angular/index.html'));
}

function getUndefined(request, response) {
   response.sendFile(path.resolve('./public/angular/index.html'));
}

// Note the dot at the beginning of the path
app.use(express.static('./public/angular'));

app.get('/', getRoot);
app.get('/*', getUndefined);

NO angular base-href rewrite is required! Just use ng build or ng build --prod.

Solution 3

Here is full back end code which is working

const express = require('express');
var app = express();
var port = 9999;

function getRoot(request, response) {
    response.sendFile(path.resolve('./public/angular/index.html'));
 }

 function getUndefined(request, response) {
     response.sendFile(path.resolve('./public/angular/index.html'));
 }


 app.use(express.static('./public/angular'));

 app.get('/', getRoot);
 app.get('/*', getUndefined);

 // Start server
 app.listen(port, function () {
    console.log('server running at port: ' + port);
}); 

Solution 4

Based on @NTN-JAVA answer, here's a solution to serve an Angular app from NodeJS server.

Here's the summary from beginning:

1. npm install -g @angular/cli

2. ng new PROJECT_NAME

3. cd PROJECT_NAME

4. npm install nodemon express cookie-parser body-parser morgan method-override --save

5.Create app.js:

var express = require('express');
var app = express();
var morgan = require('morgan');
var bodyParser = require('body-parser');
var port = process.env.PORT || 3000;
var methodOverride = require('method-override'); // simulate DELETE and PUT (express4)
var router = express.Router();

console.log('——————————- Run on port '+ port);

/****************************** Router ***************************/
router.get('*', function(req, res){
    res.sendFile('index.html', { root: __dirname + '/' });
});

/****************************** /Router ***************************/

//app.use(morgan('dev')); // log every request to the console
app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/')); // Static (public) folder

app.use(bodyParser.urlencoded({extended:true}));// get information from html forms
app.use(bodyParser.json());
app.use(bodyParser.json({ type: 'application/vnd.api+json' }));
app.use(methodOverride());
app.use('/', router); // app.use('/parent', router); call all from localhost:port/parent/*

app.listen(port);

6. Edit package.json file:

{
   ...
    "scripts": {
        "start": "ng build; cp app.js dist/app.js; node dist/app.js",
    }
   ...
}

7. Run npm start

This answer also offers a solution for calling direct URLs from browser and resolving them correctly in your app.

Solution 5

Step 1: In order to get static content, run this command in your angular app directory -

ng build --prod

Step 2: The first step will create a dist folder in your current directory, move all files in the dist folder to public folder of your node app -

Step 3: Create a node server. App.js -

var path = require('path');
var express = require('express');
var cookieParser = require('cookie-parser');
var cookieParser = require('cookie-parser');

const allowedExt = [
    '.js',
    '.ico',
    '.css',
    '.png',
    '.jpg',
    '.woff2',
    '.woff',
    '.ttf',
    '.svg',
];

var app = express();
app.use(cookieParser());

function getAngularApp(request, response) {
  response.sendFile(path.resolve('./public/index.html'));
}

function defaultHandler(request, response) {
  if (allowedExt.filter(ext => req.url.indexOf(ext) > 0).length > 0) {
    response.sendFile(path.resolve(`public/${req.url}`));
  } else {
    response.sendFile(path.resolve('./public/index.html'));
  }
}

app.use(express.json());
app.use(express.urlencoded({ extended: false }));
app.use(cookieParser());
app.use(express.static(path.join(__dirname, 'public')));

app.get('/', getAngularApp);
app.get('/*', defaultHandler);

// error handler
app.use(function(err, req, res, next) {
  // set locals, only providing error in development
  res.locals.message = err.message;
  res.locals.error = req.app.get('env') === 'development' ? err : {};
  // render the error page
  res.status(err.status || 500);
  res.render('error');
});

module.exports = app;

View more solutions

Comments

[YohanK]

Yes, possible solution is rendering the index.html in build directory as static content. If there are routing it the angular2 app, it can be navigated through links in the page, but can't by changing the browser url

[John Siu]

@yohan it is possible to handle angular2 routing by adding custom static route pointing to the index page in the nodejs app.

[John Siu]

@yohan I think the base href is automatically added when ng2 cli generate the project.

[YohanK]

This is also serving angular2 app as a static content, the matter is, we can't navigate in the app routes by changing url

[Nat4j]

Off-course u can navigate through url, since the entire application is loaded by index.html. check with angular-cli 1.0.0.19

[YohanK]

we can specify it by ng build --base-href /myUrl/ when building. Even if it is corrected we can't navigate by changing url in the browser.

[Camille]

Works well! Thanks a lot! Only need to change starts in package.json -> "scripts": {"start": "ng build && cp app.js dist/app.js && node dist/app.js"}. Note for windows "scripts": {"start": "ng build && copy app.js dist/app.js && node dist/app.js"}

[Camille]

@Yohan To allow support of browser url, simply add this .use(function(req, res) { res.sendFile(html + 'index.html'); })

[Maddy]

from next time please comment full code or provide an online link where whole code is structured

[btx]

@Maddy There is no need to post a full stack example on a node.js specific question, especially in this simple case. The basic node setup can be obtained from the docs.