If you want to send static files for some specific reason, without using the method shown in the preceding section, you can use routing and the res.sendFile() method, as shown in the following code:

// Source file: src/serve_statics_alt.js

/* @flow */
"use strict";

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

const flagsPath = path.join(__dirname, "../flags");

app.get("/uruguay", (req, res) =>
    res.sendFile(`${flagsPath}/america/south/UY.png`)
);

app.get("/england", (req, res) =>
    res.sendFile(`${flagsPath}/europe/GB.png`)
);

app.get("/license", (req, res) =>
    res.sendFile(`${flagsPath}/license.txt`)
);

app.use((err, req, res, next) => {
    console.error("Error....", err.message);
    res.status(500).send("INTERNAL SERVER ERROR");
});

app.listen(8080, () =>
    console.log(
        "Mini Express static server ready at http://localhost:8080/!"
    )
);

If you access http://127.0.0.1:8080/uruguay, you'll get my home country's flag, and http://127.0.0.1:8080/license will retrieve the MIT license for the icon set I chose; see the latter in the following screenshot:

Of course, you wouldn't use this method if you had lots of static files to provide, but if you have only a few, then this alternative solution works very well.