I feel like I'm missing some very basic here...

So I install a npm library with npm install somelib. And from what I have read I should then be able to simply do a

var somelib = require('somelib');

But it fails to find anything. I do have a node_modules directory at the root of my app, but it doesn't seem to pick it up.

I tried require.paths.push('node_modules') but it doesn't help. The only thing that seems to work is this:

require.paths.unshift('.');
var somelib = require('node_modules/somelib/lib/somelib');

Which makes me feel like this is far more work than I actually need to do to load a npm library. What am I doing wrong here? I thought that installing modules in the app meant I didnt have to futz with environment variables or paths much?

I feel like I'm missing some very basic here...

So I install a npm library with npm install somelib. And from what I have read I should then be able to simply do a

var somelib = require('somelib');

But it fails to find anything. I do have a node_modules directory at the root of my app, but it doesn't seem to pick it up.

I tried require.paths.push('node_modules') but it doesn't help. The only thing that seems to work is this:

require.paths.unshift('.');
var somelib = require('node_modules/somelib/lib/somelib');

Which makes me feel like this is far more work than I actually need to do to load a npm library. What am I doing wrong here? I thought that installing modules in the app meant I didnt have to futz with environment variables or paths much?

• javascript
• node.js
• npm

• what are you trying to install? What platform? – beatgammit Commented Jun 24, 2011 at 5:16
• Yes, you are right. Your first example is how it should work. Are you using npm 1.0 ? – Magnar Commented Jun 24, 2011 at 5:18
• 1 It is possible that a package somelib does not have a file named somelib. It is also possible the installation is misconfigured. – Amadan Commented Jun 24, 2011 at 5:20
• Actually js2coffee but I just tried with express and that worked fine. I guess not all npm modules can be required in this way? Isn't requiring the whole point of an npm module? – Alex Wayne Commented Jun 24, 2011 at 5:20
• stackoverflow./questions/15471965/… – Amol M Kulkarni Commented Mar 26, 2013 at 5:30

2 Answers 2

It's possible that somelib does not have a main file defined in their package.json or that it is incorrectly referenced. If somelib doesn't have a main but does have a directories.lib then you can do require('somelib/thefile.js') instead.

If somelib is written in coffeescript and your app isn't, you'll need to require('coffee-script') first.

Update: as js2coffee is coffeescript, I'm going with you need to do the latter.

Having the specific module name instead of "somelib" might help... but check the package's package.json file. Display the require.paths and pare. Read up on node's module system