I'm developing microservice architecture on nodejs.
I moved 'core' functionality to separate git repository, and each 'service' add that core as npm dependency.
In service I use core as
require('core/module1');
In that case nodejs takes 'core' from node_modules, it's ok for production but for development I want to take 'core' from the external folder not from node_modules.
My main idea - do changes in 'core' and immidiately get the result in 'service'.
I cannot use NODE_PATH for specify external 'core' folder, because I've used it now.
I found solution to use 'app-module-path' module for adding additional directories to the Node.js module search path.
if(isDevelopment()){
require('app-module-path').addPath('path_to_core_folder');
}
It's working solution, but maybe you can suggest some more clear way?
My folders structure
- core
module1
- service1
-index.js
-node_modules
-core
Thanks.
Either one works. If you require('modulename') and it's present in your node_modules folder, it will be loaded from there. If you want it to load from another folder or from your main folder, you need to do require('./modulename") which will look for it in the current folder. Alternatively you can do require('./my_modules/modulename') which will work for a subfolder.
i would look at the mockrequire module, it allows you to redirect the directory your modules are loaded from
npm link is the answer to your problem. You can run the below command in the root directory of 'service1' (where your package.json is present)
npm link [../relative-path-to/library]
Refer to https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/v7/commands/npm-link for more details about npm link.
Related
i have a project with two nodeJS projects inside, a backend project with inside a folder "client" for the frontend.
Now i would like to make one common node_moduels folder both.
I found that PNPM could do that, but for me the documentation is not so clear. How doest it work?
How can i run pnpm i on my root folder and then make my node_modules accessable for my "client" folder?
Thank you!
On Linux or Mac, i usually symlink the module (ln -s) into my other projects' libs. Then i import or require the module from there. It's located directly in your codebase, not in node_modules, but it works just fine.
Just don't update the common module without keeping in mind all the dependant projects.
For easy versioning, you may choose to publish your module to npm (even as private), and update it with each push for each of the dependants.
I'm trying to create a npm package of a couple React components. These will be used in a couple of other projects so I would like them in a separate package.
What I would like to be able to do is require('comps/a-component') from an app using this package. I could do this by putting all my components in the root of the module, but I don't want to do that. Instead I want to have all components in src/components/ because the root will be overcrowded.
This seems like a trivial thing to do but I have not yet succeeded. I've looked through https://docs.npmjs.com/files/package.json trying to find an option to set the root or something. Does anyone have any ideas on how to achieve this?
Thanks!
You can make symlink in you node_modules directory to your components directory. This would allow you to require your components from anywhere in your app like you said: require('comps/a-component'). To create the symlink on a linux or osx you can do something like this
cd ./node_modules; ln -snf ../src/components comps;
Another option would be to actually create npm packages out of each component, that way you could have them listed in your dependencies of your package.json.
Another promising option that was released in npm 2.0 are local dependencies. This allows you to point to a local npm package on your file system. In this case each component would have to be written as an npm package with a package.json https://docs.npmjs.com/files/package.json#local-paths
If your app is like this:
- AppFolder
|-index.js
|-Readme.md
|-/src
|-app.js
|-anotherThing.js
If I want to use anotherThing.js, I can just do var anotherThing = require('./src/anotherThing');. Unless I fail to understand your problem.
Or maybe you meant the main attribute in package.json
I am looking at some code on github.
https://github.com/madhums/node-express-mongoose/blob/master/config/routes.js
On line 7 it says.
var home = require('home');
home.js is in another folder. I am wondering how this works, and how I can do this in my own code.
on
http://nodejs.org/api/modules.html#modules_folders_as_modules
it explains how to create a self-contained directory, but I can only find the package.json in the root folder. So how does this work?
It seems like a more clean way than having direct file references.
There are ways to refer to folders on the filesystem as packages in node, npm link for example, will pretend a folder is a module using symlinks.
The package you linked to is cheating a bit though, and I'd argue it's not clean at all when put like that. It's actually setting the NODE_PATH to include all controllers when the service is ran: https://github.com/madhums/node-express-mongoose/blob/master/package.json#L13
So all controllers files like home.js are autmatically available. The .js is always optional anyway.
I have a project in which I use node-webkit. node-webkit allows npm packages to be used for developing desktop applications. I make use of grunt to build my application.
My folder structure looks like this at the moment:
project root
node_modules/ (1)
package.json (1)
App/
node_modules/ (2)
package.json (2)
bower.json
bower_components/
...
controllers/
filters/
...
app.js
The npm dependencies for the application itself are kept within the App folder, but the dev dependencies for building the project are not related to the application source code, so i keep them in node_modules (1) inside the root folder. I also know that in a package.json file one can express dependencies and dev dependencies, exactly for this reason. I would rather have one package.json file in the root expressing ALL dependencies, including dev dependencies, but i would rather have a separation of those dependencies on folder level.
Two questions arise:
Is this a good way to organize my npm dependencies? If yes, awesome? If no, which I expect:
What is a better way to organize my dependencies? Is it possible to specify that dev dependencies go into folder a, and 'regular' dependencies go into folder b? If so, how do I do this?
In case anyone is wondering, this is the project i am talking about:
https://github.com/michahell/pinbored-webkit
[updated folder structure to include app.js for clarity]
It is perfectly fine to keep more than one package.json file and multiple node_module directories for a project. If you consider the parts as separate components.
An example might be if, you have one directory containing a node server, another containing a react app, and a third containing some kind of deployment script written in javascript.
#Michael package.json file contains all the dependencies related to that project.There is no need for multiple package files and multiple node_modules folders..
But you need to check where is your App.js file!!
your App.js , package.json must be in same folder unless configured.
I'm new to Node but am enjoying myself so far. I was trying to move my node_modules (libraries) directory outside of the public 'webroot' and need advice and guidance.
I've setup my simple expressJS based Node project as follows:
/my_project
/config
/public
/node_modules
server.js
I was wondering if there was any way I could have the /node_modules dir outside of my webroot and not break my application. I'm just so used to keeping the bare minimum in my publicly exposed webroot and don't feel right with the libs being in there. Call me old fashioned but that's how I'm used to doing stuff in the PHP and C# world.
If I setup the project as follows:
/my_project
/config
/node_modules
/public
server.js
then it all goes wobbly and Node's require() magic breaks.
I've tried the following:
var express=require('../express'); which doesn't work either giving me the 'Cannot Find module' type error.
Is what I'm asking even possible, if so then how?
Are there any major risks with me having my libs in a webroot or have I missed something fundamental here with the way Node works.
What do you guys do, what is best practice for production apps? May I have some examples of your production practices and why.
1. Is it possible to have modules in a folder outside of the project
Yes.
2. Are there any major risks with having modules in a webroot?
Assuming that you by "webroot" mean in the root of the server or any folder outside of your project: yes. It is possible to install modules globally with npm using the g-flag: npm install -g express. This generally considered bad practice as different projects may depend on different versions of the same module. Installing locally allows different projects to have different versions.
If you're using version control and don't want to check in the external modules, a common (and standard in npm) pattern is to ignore ./node_modules and specify dependencies in a package.json file.
3. "What is best practice for production apps?"
Not a good fit for SO, but since I'm at it I'll give it a shot anyway. If you use grunt (a very popular task automation tool) you'll usually end up with a structure like this:
/my_project
/node_modules
/lib
# actual project files
/public
# files that are meant to be sent to clients
/test
package.json # specifies dependencies, main script, version etc
README.md # optional
This structure has the advantages of clearly separating core files, dependencies and any tests while keeping it all in the same folder.