Is it possible for me to make changes in a file of a module under node_modules directory (by SSHing to that stage unix box) and expect the UI to reflect the changes just be restarting that app on that box? Without having to rebuild?
Yes it would work but I wouldn't recommend it, it would be better to fork the module and publish your own version of it to npm with the npm publish command and use your custom module instead. If it is a bug fix, do the above but issue a pull request while trying to honor the contribution guidelines.
That is unless you are using a bundling tool that minifies and compiles the js modules to one file, in this case you would have to rebuild with the bundling tool you are using such as webpack, a grunt script etc.
I have downloaded some nodejs script and there is no package.json inside. It works with a lot of npm_modules but this directory is huge and I'm pretty sure it does not use ALL of them.
Is there a way I can list all dependencies ACTUALLY used by this node script ?
in nodejs itself.
Create a simple package.json for your script (without any dependencies). After that you can npm module dependency-check (https://www.npmjs.com/package/dependency-check) with the --missing option.
Hope this helps.
I have two front-end application on Angular. And I made some common library for them. Before I used git submodules, but I want to move to npm. I rewritten that library as node package, and installing it with npm from github repo.
Then I want to pipe it through browserify and integrate with the rest of my Angular code. I am able to require('MyUtils'), but then I don't know how to get file of that module to pass to browserify. Is there some property like __file__ in python? Or is browserify able to take module instead of filename?
If your apps call require('MyUtils'), Browserify will automatically include the contents of the MyUtils package (and all of its dependencies) in the bundle it outputs.
And another solution to get filename of module, in case someone will look is to use the require.resolve() function. Node documentation on modules
is there a way I can use an npm package on the client side? For example, I want to use the dateformat(https://www.npmjs.com/package/dateformat) package in my client side javascript file
If you want to use npm on the client you may consider using browserify which is designed for that purpose. The node module system is not compatible with browsers so browserify transpiles the javascript into something that will work. Hence the name : browserify.
I found it wasn't enough to use Browserify. There were still issues with the client-side not finding the variables/functions from the library.
Here are the steps that worked for me:
Install Browserify:
npm install -g browserify
Install a library from npm (I'll use leader-line as an example):
npm i leader-line
You will now have all the npm files needed inside the node_modules directory:
Now we can run the usual Browserify command to bundle the JS file from the npm package:
browserify node_modules/leader-line/leader-line.min.js -o bundle.js
This will produce a bundle.js file outside of node_modules:
This is the file we can bring into the front-end, as we would with a usual JS library.
So, assuming I added my bundle.js file to a libs folder, and renamed bundle.js to leaderline.js, I can simply add the usual line in the header of my index.html file:
<script src="libs/leaderline.js" type="module"></script>
Notice the addition of type="module" to the script tag.
However, this is STILL not enough. The final step is to open the JS file for the library (in my case leaderline.js) and find the main function that needs to be exported (usually somewhere near the top):
var LeaderLine=function(){"use strict";var te,g,y,S,_,o,t,h,f,p,a,i,l,v="leader-line"
I need LeaderLine to be available inside my scripts. To make this possible, we simply remove var and add window. in front of the function name, like this:
window.LeaderLine=function(){"use strict";var te,g,y,S,_,o,t,h,f,p,a,i,l,v="leader-line"
Now I can use the library client-side without any problems:
HTML:
<div id="start">start</div>
<div id="end">end</div>
JS
new LeaderLine(
document.getElementById('start'),
document.getElementById('end')
);
Some will argue that exposing the function to the window is too "global" for best practices. But the other option is to use module bundlers, which handle the exposing of packages, and this is overkill for many applications, especially if you're trying to whip together a quick front-end to try something out.
I find it odd that so many now publish packages in npm, that are obviously intended for the front-end (e.g. obviously nobody would use leaderline.js in back-end node, yet this is where the package was published, with no available CDN).
Given how tortuous it is to expose front-end functionality from an npm package, one can argue that today's JS ecosystem is a mess.
Most of the packages on NPM are designed for server side and won't work on the client side because of security reasons. You could use NW.js, but the user would have to install your software on there computer.
"NW.js (previously known as node-webkit) lets you call all Node.js modules directly from DOM and enables a new way of writing applications with all Web technologies."
http://nwjs.io/
I'm working on my node.js demo.location.io web app at the same time as my location.io library. I'd like to be able to make changes to the location.io library and push them up to github from inside the node_modules folder. Is there any support for this in npm?
(If I understand your question) You can use
npm link
to link your location.io to your local demo.location.io repo. More info here