Loading image files in production - React

Question

I've built my first full React app, and it works beautifully. I load my dev-server and everything loads exactly as I would hope. Notably, my image files load perfectly.

An example of a successful image load on my dev server:

<img src='./img/sq/filename.jpg' />

When running the dev server, when I inspect this element in the console and go to 'Sources', I see the file tree like this:

- localhost:3333
  - css [folder]
  - js [folder]
  - img/sq [folder]
    - filename.jpg 
  - index [file]

This is as I would expect.

However, when running the production server, the image fails to load. When I inspect the element, and go to 'Sources', this is what I see instead:

- localhost:3000
  - static [folder]
    - css [folder]
    - js [folder]
    - index [file]

So my production build is apparently ignoring the /img/sq folder altogether.

I've heard about file-loader and url-loader, but I've yet to find a clear and simple explanation of what they do and how to use them. I've installed both to my dependencies successfully, and I've added this loader to my webpack.config.js file:

{
  test: /\.(jpe?g|png|gif|svg)$/i,
  loaders: [
    'file?hash=sha512&digest=hex&name=[hash].[ext]',
    'image-webpack?bypassOnDebug&optimizationLevel=7&interlaced=false'
  ]
}

After doing this, I'm not sure how this is supposed to change the way the images load. Should I change the way the image is referenced? Any help/pointers would be massively appreciated, as this has me stumped.

---

UPDATE:

This is my server.js file. I can't see any radical difference between the code that you posted and my own, except for me using res.render method, to your res.sendFile.

Is there anything I may have missed here?

server.js

var express = require('express') 
var app = express(); 


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


 app.set('views', __dirname + '/views'); 
 app.set('view engine', 'ejs'); 


 app.get('*', function (req, res) { 
     res.render("index"); 
 }); 


 const port = process.env.PORT || 3000; 
 const env = process.env.NODE_ENV || 'production'; 
 app.listen(port, err => { 
   if (err) { 
     return console.error(err); 
   } 
   console.info(`Server running on http://localhost:${port} [${env}]`); 
 }); 

Answer 1

I recommend you using the 'Create React App' as a skeleton.

https://github.com/facebookincubator/create-react-app

You can add an image to the App.js that is created to test if the image loads in both your development and production servers.

our app class with the added image should look like this:

class App extends Component {
  render() {
    return (
      <div className="App">
        <div className="App-header">
          <img src={logo} className="App-logo" alt="logo" />
          <h2>Welcome to React</h2>
        </div>
        <p className="App-intro">
          To get started, edit <code>src/App.js</code> and save to reload.
        </p>

        <img src='./img/sq/filename.jpg' />
      </div>
    );
  }
}

As an example, you can successfully load an image with node.js server with this code (file index.js) and the build folder with the react code

const express = require('express');
const path = require('path');
const app = express();

app.use(express.static('./build'));

app.get('/', function (req, res) {
  res.sendFile(path.join(__dirname, './build', 'index.html'));
});

app.listen(9000);

To summarize the steps are:

1. Use the 'Create React App' to create a skeleton for you application
2. Add a single image to the render code (use the above code)
3. Run npm run build to create the build folder with the image in it

4. Use the node.js code to create a server (use above code) and put your build folder (created in the previous step) next to your index.js node code. Remark: you should install 'express' 'path' modules and then run your server node.js code.

   npm install express --save

   npm install path --save

   node index.js

5. Navigate to localhost:9000 to see your app with the image in it.

These steps should help you resolve your issue as it is an example of how to build react code to be used in production and see the image in a production environment.