local-require v0.1.0
local-require
Problem
Working in large node.js project usually contain complex and nested directory structure. Directory structure helps in organizing your code but it bring many drawback with that. This module solve one of the drawback, To understand problem lets consider following directory structure
projecct_name
|
|-foo
| |-foo1
| | |-f1.js
| |-f.js
|
|-bar
| |-bar1
| | |-b1.js
| |-b.js
|
|_server.js
many time we endup requiring f.js
and f1.js
in b1.js
(may be it is result of bad programming but this is not point). Given nature of node.js
we will be doing somethign like require('../../foo/foo1/f1.js')
. Problem with this is require statement is solely depend on directory structure if position of f1.js
changes then above require
method wont work. and if we are requiring f1.js
from various part of code then we have to give relative path from module. which might be painful.
Solution
My solution is simple it uses awesomeness of require
. node.js find modules in particular fashion algorithm is explain in doc. Given the nature of algorithm any thing in node_modules
folder can access without relative path. So at start of your server
(usually in server.js
) just create symboliclink
to your local files in node_module
folder then you can access these local file without relative path from anywhere in codebase. But all symbolic link in node_modules
folder wont look nice and it will hard to maintain. So why not create directory for these symbolicslink of local files and access them by directory_name/file_name
.
Installation
npm install local-require
Test
npm test
Api
local-require
module provides nonblocking
api.
var lrequire = require('local-require');
lrequire.register(opts, function (err) {
if (err) {
//problem in creating symlink
} else {
//ready to use awesomeness of local-require
}
});
Or you can also use blocking
api
var lrequire = require('local-require')
lrequire.registerSync(opts);
as any nice blocking api this will throws an exception if any thing went wrong.
where opts
is
{
namespace: 'demo', //required, directory in which you want to add all symlink
basedir : __direname //optional, directory from which function called default : process.cwd()
config : {
'f1' : './foo/foo1/f1/js',
'bar1': './bar/bar1'
} //requied , it is an object in which name and location mapping done
}
So you can add f1.js
from any part of codebase by require('demo/f1')
. We can also use this method to include directory
by require('demo/bar1')
Use of namespace
here is just to segregate symboliclink files which will lead to simple maintain.You can create any number of namespace just avoid conlicting name with previous namespace or installed package name
ToDo
if you have use same namespace more than once, last namespace options will override, which also means it will override any install package who has same name as your
namespace
we can handle these condition more civilized way.
Contribution
please contribute, You can contribute by either creating issue
or just send pull request for feature
you want to include in module.
License
(The MIT License)