Question

Uncaught ReferenceError: require is not defined

Posted on August 1, 2023
Softwares
Asked by HappyTurquoiseMorel

I am tyring to get node.js working and when I call a ‘require’, I get the following error Uncaught ReferenceError: require is not defined

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Bobby Iliev

Site Moderator

• August 4, 2023

Hi there,

This error usually occurs when trying to use Node.js’s require() function in a context where it isn’t defined. This is common when you try to use require() in client-side JavaScript, which runs in a web browser.

Web browsers don’t support the require() function natively because it is part of Node.js’s module system (CommonJS), not part of standard JavaScript. To use modules in client-side JavaScript, you would generally use the ES6 import statement. However, this assumes that the script you’re importing is an ES6 module, and it must be served from a web server due to CORS (Cross-Origin Resource Sharing) policies in browsers.

If you’re trying to use a Node.js library in client-side code, you will often need to use a tool like Browserify or Webpack. These tools bundle your code and its dependencies into a single JavaScript file that can be included in your HTML.

If you are indeed trying to use Node.js and the error persists, it could be due to several reasons:

The script is not running in a Node.js environment. Make sure you’re running your script with Node.js, e.g. node your_script.js in the command line.
The module you’re trying to require is not installed. If you’re trying to require a third-party module, make sure it’s installed using npm install module_name.
The path to the module is incorrect. If you’re trying to require a local file, make sure the path to the file is correct. For example, if you’re in the same directory as the file, the require statement would be require('./filename').