Question

I am messing around in Node.js trying to replicate that simple chat server that was floating around.

This is my JavaScript source file:

var net = require('net');
var carrier = require('carrier');

var connections = [];

var server = net.createServer(function(conn) {
    connections.push(conn);

    conn.on('close', function() {
        var pos = connections.indexOf(conn);
        if (pos >= 0) {
            connections.splice(pos, 1);
        }
    });

    conn.write("Hello, welcome to this chat server!\n");
    conn.write("Please input your user name:\n");

    var username;

    carrier.carry(conn, function(line) {
        if(!username) {
            username = line;
            conn.write("Hello " + username + "!\n");
            return;
        }

        if(line == 'quit') {
            conn.end();
            return;
        }

        connections.forEach(function(one_connection) {
            one_connection.write(line);
        });
});

server.listen(8000);

As far as I can tell, everything in here is correct.

Now, when I try to run it through node.js, I get the following:

script.js:39
});

node.js:134
    throw e;

There is some stuff that follows, but what I don’t understand is node.js referencing line 39, which doesn’t even exist. It’s a 38-lined script with the last line being:

server.listen(8000);

So, what am I doing wrong?

I’m sorry if this is really simple, I’m very new at this, and it’s kind of daunting.

Thanks!

Answer 1

You’re missing a set of }); at the bottom. It’s complaining about that.

From your indentation, it’s from carrier.carry(conn, function(line) {

I strongly suggest getting an editor that can point out matching parens / braces (e.g. TextMate on a Mac or EditPlus on Windows)