Question

I am new to node.js and I’m just trying to learn how to use Express and Jade. It seems that this line in jade.js is causing some kind of problem: window.jade = require("jade");

I can start up my server just fine, but when I visit it in my browser I get this error:

ReferenceError: window is not defined
    at C:\Users\User\Desktop\node-js-web\node_modules\jade\jade.js:3142:1
    at Object.<anonymous> (C:\Users\User\Desktop\node-js-web\node_modules\jade\jade.js:3143:2)
    at Module._compile (module.js:441:26)
    at Object..js (module.js:459:10)
    at Module.load (module.js:348:31)
    at Function._load (module.js:308:12)
    at Module.require (module.js:354:17)
    at require (module.js:370:17)
    at Object.<anonymous> (C:\Users\User\Desktop\node-js-web\node_modules\jade\index.js:4:5)
    at Module._compile (module.js:441:26)

When I comment out that line I get this error instead:

TypeError: Object #<Object> has no method 'compile'
    at Function.compile (C:\Users\User\Desktop\node-js-web\node_modules\express\lib\view.js:68:33)
    at ServerResponse._render (C:\Users\User\Desktop\node-js-web\node_modules\express\lib\view.js:417:18)
    at ServerResponse.render (C:\Users\User\Desktop\node-js-web\node_modules\express\lib\view.js:318:17)
    at C:\Users\User\Desktop\node-js-web\server.js:37:7
    at callbacks (C:\Users\User\Desktop\node-js-web\node_modules\express\lib\router\index.js:272:11)
    at param (C:\Users\User\Desktop\node-js-web\node_modules\express\lib\router\index.js:246:11)
    at pass (C:\Users\User\Desktop\node-js-web\node_modules\express\lib\router\index.js:253:5)
    at Router._dispatch (C:\Users\User\Desktop\node-js-web\node_modules\express\lib\router\index.js:280:4)
    at Object.handle (C:\Users\User\Desktop\node-js-web\node_modules\express\lib\router\index.js:45:10)
    at next (C:\Users\User\Desktop\node-js-web\node_modules\express\node_modules\connect\lib\http.js:203:15)

I really don’t know what to do here. Can anyone help?

Answer 1

There is no window object in Node.js because it’s not in a browser. If you want to attach jade to the global scope, use global.

(But why do you want to make the variable global to your application, anyways? Only Express needs the jade object to render your views.)