REALLY quick and dirty static file dev server

README.md

Usage

node dirtyserve.js

The point your browser to

http://localhost:3000/myfile.xxx

and the server will try to serve that file from the local server.

dirtyserve.js

var http = require('http')
var fs = require('fs')
http.createServer(function (req, res) {
  var filename = req.url.substring(1)
  if (!fs.existsSync(filename)) {
    res.writeHead(404)
    res.end(filename+' not found')
    return
  }
  var contents = fs.readFileSync(filename)
  var fileEnding = req.url.match(/\.(.+)$/)[1]
  res.writeHead(200, { 'Content-Type': 'text/'+ fileEnding })
  res.end(contents)
}).listen(3000)

I use Nodejs quick and dirty static web server like yours everyday.

Usually I prefer to pipe a read stream inside the response to avoid IO blocking operations

var file = fs.createReadStream(url)

file.on('error', function(err){
  // Code...
  res.end()
});

file.on('end', function(){
  res.end()
})

file.pipe(res)

It would also be a good idea to handle request to "/" by linking to an index.html file and redirect each request inside a sub folder named "public" to avoir expose everything including your application code.

var url = __dirname

if(req.url == "/"){
  url += '/public/index.html'
}else{
  url += '/public'+ req.url.split("?")[0]
}

I use the split function to remove any querystring that could follow the filename in the url.

That could be some nice addition to your code.