Your code example throws an error

[simevidas]

In your README, you have this line in the code example:

gulp.watch(['{.tmp,app}/styles/**/*.css'], ['styles:css', server.notify]);

It seems that this code is invalid. The event with the "path" property is not passed to the server.notify method. I get a "TypeError: Cannot read property 'path' of null".

My full gulpfile.js is:

var gulp = require('gulp');
var server = require('gulp-express');
var stylus = require('gulp-stylus');
var minify = require('gulp-minify-css');
var autoprefixer = require('gulp-autoprefixer');

gulp.task('server', function () {   
    server.run({
        file: 'app.js',
    });

    gulp.watch(['source/styl/*.styl'], ['css', server.notify]);
});

gulp.task('css', function () {
    return gulp.src('source/styl/*.styl')
        .pipe(stylus({ compress: false, 'include css': true }))
        .pipe(autoprefixer({ cascade: false }))
        .pipe(minify())
        .pipe(gulp.dest('public/css/'));
});

[simevidas]

Update: As a temporary workaround, I’m performing these steps:

1. I’m using gulp-livereload to manually .pipe(livereload()) at the end of my CSS and JS build streams. This works OK, I just have to call livereload.listen() after server.run().
2. I’ve manually edited the port in your index.js so that it doesn’t conflict with gulp-livereload.

[whisher]

Hi all, same problem here :( @simevidas your workaround it seems not work

'use strict';

var gulp = require('gulp');
var server = require('gulp-express');
var concat = require('gulp-concat');
var ngAnnotate = require('gulp-ng-annotate');
var livereload = require('gulp-livereload');
require('./gulp/config');

gulp.task('scripts', function () {
    return gulp.src(config.paths.src.scripts)
        .pipe(concat(config.filenames.scripts))
        .pipe(ngAnnotate())
        .pipe(gulp.dest(config.paths.dest.build.scripts))
        .pipe(livereload());
});
gulp.task('serve', function () {
    // Start the server at the beginning of the task
    server.run({
        file: 'server.js',
        port: 45729
    });
    livereload.listen();
    gulp.watch(config.paths.src.scripts, ['scripts', server.notify]);
});
gulp.task('default', ['serve']); //

I always get

node_modules/gulp-express/index.js:80 var fileName = require('path').relative(__dirname, event.path); TypeError: Cannot read property 'path' of null

[simevidas]

@whisher I’m using livereload() as a replacement for server.notify. So, in your case, the watch call should invoke the "scripts" task, and nothing more:

gulp.watch(config.paths.src.scripts, ['scripts']);

Note: I have the livereload.js script manually included in my website, via:

<script src="//localhost:35729/livereload.js"></script> 

at the bottom of my HTML pages.

[whisher]

mmm like this it works :)

var scriptsWatcher = gulp.watch(config.paths.src.scripts, ['scripts']);
scriptsWatcher.on('change', server.notify);

You should put

app.use(require('connect-livereload')());

in your express file

[gimm]

Hello simevidas and whisher, I've just verified the issue, the 'event' is passed to notify correctly with the path value. Could you please provide more details here so that I can reproduce the issue you have?

[whisher]

Hello gimm, node v0.10.33 npm 1.4.28 gulp 3.8.10 in my example

//this work
var scriptsWatcher = gulp.watch(config.paths.src.scripts, ['scripts']);
scriptsWatcher.on('change', server.notify);
//this doesn't work
/*node_modules/gulp-express/index.js:80
var fileName = require('path').relative(__dirname, event.path);
TypeError: Cannot read property 'path' of null*/
var scriptsWatcher = gulp.watch(config.paths.src.scripts, ['scripts',server.notify]);

[gimm]

@whisher @simevidas Yes, you're right. The event object is not passed to the callback (server.notify) if there's multiple ones, like this:

gulp.watch(config.paths.src.scripts, ['scripts',server.notify]); // two callbacks here

According to gulp.watch, in order to make sure the callbacks get the event object, we need to:

var fileWatcher = gulp.watch('files to watch', callback1);
fileWatcher.on('change', callback2);

or

gulp.watch(['files to wach'], function (event) {
        callback1(event);
        callback2(event);
    });

I have updated the readme, thanks man!