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JavaScript Build a REST API With Express Building API Routes in Express Building the Question Routes

Posted by Susan Rusie
Susan Rusie
10,671 Points

Why am I getting this error in the console?

This is the error I am getting in the console and I can't figure out why. 

Rusie@DESKTOP-05UMA67 MINGW64 ~/Documents/susan_treehouse/Building_a_Rest_API/Building_the_Question_Routes (master)
$ node app.js
module.js:471
    throw err;
    ^

Error: Cannot find module './routes'
    at Function.Module._resolveFilename (module.js:469:15)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:417:25)
    at Module.require (module.js:497:17)
    at require (internal/module.js:20:19)
    at Object.<anonymous> (C:\Users\Rusie\Documents\susan_treehouse\Building_a_R
est_API\Building_the_Question_Routes\app.js:5:14)
    at Module._compile (module.js:570:32)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:579:10)
    at Module.load (module.js:487:32)
    at tryModuleLoad (module.js:446:12)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:438:3)

Here is my code starting with route.js:

'use strict';

var express = require("express");
var router = express.Router();

// GET /questions
// Route for questions collection
router.get("/", function(req, res){
    res.json({response: "You sent me a GET request"});
});

// POST /questions
// Route for creating questions
router.post("/", function(req, res){
    res.json({
        response: "You sent me a POST request",
        body: req.body
    });
});

// GET /questions/:id
// Route for specific questions
router.get("/:id", function(req, res){
    res.json({
        response: "You sent me a GET request for ID " + req.params.id
    });
});

module.exports = router;

My app.js

'use strict';

var express = require("express");
var app = express();
var routes = require("./routes");

var jsonParser = require("body-parser").json;

app.use(jsonParser());

app.use("/questions", routes);

var port = process.env.PORT || 3000;

app.listen(port, function(){
    console.log("Express server is listening on port", port);
});

Any help on this would be greatly appreciated. Thanks in advance.

Susan Rusie
Susan Rusie
10,671 Points

I realized I had left the "s" off of the route.js folder to make it routes.js so now Node works. However, that doesn't explain why when I asked for a POST request that instead of getting "color": "blue", I got this: 

{
  "response": "You sent me a POST request",
  "body": {}
}

What did I miss to cause this to happen?

nico dev
nico dev
20,364 Points
nico dev
nico dev
20,364 Points

Hi Susan Rusie ,

That might probably have happened if, in your Postman, when you typed the body to be sent in the POST request, you did not select (in the options above) the JSON (application/json) radio button.

The default is Text, and when I forgot to set it appropriately (despite the fact it was mentioned before in the course), I got that exact situation: the body appeared like an empty object.