configure node express to serve static bower_components?

Question

I have a directory structure

projectName
    | - bower_components/
    | - public/
        | - css
        | - js
        | - index.html
    | - Gruntfile.js
    | - package.json
    | - bower.json
    | - app.js

I would like to start my app and serve index.html with node. So in app.js I have:

var express = require('express');
var port = process.env.PORT || 3000;
var app = express();

app.configure(function(){
    // Serve up content from public directory
    app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));
    app.use(app.router);
    app.use(express.logger()); 
});

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

At the bottom of index.html I have:

<script src="../bower_components/jquery/jquery.js"></script>
<script src="../bower_components/d3/d3.js"></script>
<script src="../bower_components/bootstrap/dist/js/bootstrap.js"></script>
<script src="bower_components/spin.js/spin.js"></script>
<script src="bower_components/mustache/mustache.js"></script>

When I start the server, index.html shows up but none of the above libraries load. I get the error (404):

GET http://localhost:3000/bower_components/jquery/jquery.js 404 (Not Found) localhost/:32
GET http://localhost:3000/bower_components/d3/d3.js 404 (Not Found) localhost/:33
GET http://localhost:3000/bower_components/bootstrap/dist/js/bootstrap.js 404 (Not Found) localhost/:34
GET http://localhost:3000/bower_components/spin.js/spin.js 404 (Not Found) localhost/:35
GET http://localhost:3000/bower_components/mustache/mustache.js 404 (Not Found) 

How can I serve the files from bower_components?

Answer 1

I use this setup:

app.use(express.static(__dirname + '/public'));
app.use('/bower_components',  express.static(__dirname + '/bower_components'));

So any Bower components are loaded from HTML like this:

<script src="/bower_components/..."></script>

And any other client-side JS/CSS (in public/) are loaded like this:

<script src="/js/..."></script>