This is an ES6-specific duplicate of this SO thread, which details how to create a javascript module that can be exported for use in both a browser and node context.
I would be just as glad for an answer to appear there, if that's more appropriate.
For background, here's a quote of the ES5 solution, as well as the problems that arise in trying to translate it to ES6. (Credit to users #caolan and #broesch.)
(function(exports){
// Your code goes here. For example:
exports.test = function(){
return 'hello world'
};
})(typeof exports === 'undefined'? this.mymodule = {} : exports);
Thus, if exports is undefined, you must be in the browser, in which case mymodule is declared on the window (i.e., this). Or, if exports is defined, it's in a node context, in which case you can just var mymodule = require('mymodule'). And in either environment, you can then use it as mymodule.test(). Great.
One problem with this is that exports.whatever doesn't expose whatever in the current scope, so if you want to use whatever within the module, you end up needing to do
var whatever = 3;
exports.whatever = whatever;
which can get cumbersome, and is easy to forget.
In ES6, on the other hand, you can do export const whatever = 3, which would both export and expose whatever, which is DRYer and thus easier to maintain.
The new problems are that
export must be at the top level of the file, which means you can't use the syntax from the ES5 answer
export isn't a function (is it?), so you can't use type of to achieve the conditional browser/node context.
So, my question is: what is the ES6 version of creating a .js file that can exported to both the browser and node?
Related
I have my HTML setup like this:
<script type="module" src="main.js"></script>
and all the ES6 modules work fine. The only problem is I now can't refer to anything from within DevTools (like using the Console and typing in a variable to see it's value or using a function manually).
How do I import modules whilst being able to use the DevTools? Thanks!
One way to make a variable accessable within DevTools is to create it on the window object:
// Variable in your module
var importantNumber = 1;
window.importantNumber = importantNumber;
This method works fine if you just have a couple of variables, but if you need to have access to a lot more variables within DevTools, I would recommend you go to the sources-tab in DevTools, search for your module and adding a breakpoint. When the execution pauses, you have access to all the variables within that module on the DevTools console.
If you want to be able to refer to variables created within the module from the console's global scope, you'll have to deliberately expose each such variable that you want to be visible from the console. Either assign each variable to window (probably not a good idea - the whole point of modules is to make things more modular, without global pollution), or perhaps assign a single object to window, to which you assign module variables. For example:
// in the console:
setTimeout(() => {
window.myModule.foo();
console.log(window.myModule.bar);
});
<script type="module">
function foo() {
console.log('doing foo');
}
const bar = 'a string bar';
const thisModule = { foo, bar };
window.myModule = thisModule;
// If you ever reassign variables, you'll have to reassign them on thisModule too
// or, only reference and reassign properties of thisModule, rather than create independent variables
</script>
For anyone else interested, if you're comfortable with it, use a bundler like Webpack. I don't believe (at least at this point) that the browser will by itself be able to use the DevTools on modules (the other solutions are quite janky, and aren't fantastic to work with).
Hopefully in the future, when all major browsers will be able to support ES6 modules without a bundler, we'll be able to use DevTools.
Using a Helper
I personally use a little helper function in development that allows me to expose a bunch a variables in a single expression. For example, it makes the following two blocks equivalent:
window.playerOne = playerOne;
window.someClass = someClass;
window.localData = localData;
globalize({playerOne, someClass, localData});
The helper looks like this:
const globalize = function(variables) {
Object.entries(variables).forEach(([name, value]) => window[name] = value);
};
I've been using a pattern in my node.js modules that seems so obvious to me that I assume there must be something wrong with it or I would see more people doing it. To keep private variables that are global to the module, I simply attach them as properties on the module object. Like so:
module.exports = {
init: function() {
module.someClient = initializeSomethingHere()
},
someMethod: function(done) {
module.someClient.doSomething(done)
}
}
This seems preferable to me than something like this...
var someClient;
module.exports = {
init: function() {
someClient = initializeSomethingHere()
},
someMethod: function(done) {
someClient.doSomething(done)
}
}
...because in the second example you need to go searching for var someClient at the top of the file to make sure that the omission of the var keyword is intentional within the init method. I've never seen this pattern used elsewhere though, so I wonder if I'm missing something that makes it less than ideal.
Thoughts?
There are a couple of possible downsides that come to mind.
1) It's technically possible for those properties to be accessed and modified outside the module, but only if a reference to the module itself is available outside it. Something that makes the module available through its own exports (module.exports = module; being the simplest example) would expose them.
2) You could have a naming conflict with a builtin property or a future builtin property that doesn't exist yet (which would cause your code to break in future versions of node.js). This could be very problematic and very hard to debug. Currently the built-in properties on a module object are: children, exports, filename, id, loaded, paths, and parent.
because in the second example you need to go searching for var someClient at the top of the file to make sure that the omission of the var keyword is intentional within the init method.
If that is the reason, you could just use a namespace that isn't module. For instance by adding var private = {}; to the top of each file and then using private.someClient instead of module.someClient.
Also 'use strict'; so that the accidental omission of var is an error and not an accidental global.
Drawbacks
Option 1: This practice is prone to naming conflict with a builtin property or a future builtin property that doesn't exist yet, as #paulpro stated in his answer.
Option 2: If you miss var keyword and expose the someClient globally. Besides you need to go searching for var someClient at the top of the file all the time.
Alternative
As JavaScript has function scope it's better to define everything within a function. Creating private and public members within a function. Below is a design pattern which one can follow:
'use strict';
module.exports = (function(){
//private
var someClient;
//public properties
var that={};
that.init = function() {
someClient = initializeSomethingHere()
},
that.someMethod: function(done) {
someClient.doSomething(done)
}
//expose only the required methods
return that;
})();
Here only exposed methods are those which are attached to that object. And all rest are private to the function scope. Even if you miss the var keyword in someClient it won't be accessible out side of the function, which won't ever happen if you use 'use strict' at the top.
Logic is first time when you require the xyz.js file it will return the that object rather than the function.
This is my second weekend playing with Node, so this is a bit newbie.
I have a js file full of common utilities that provide stuff that JavaScript doesn't. Severely clipped, it looks like this:
module.exports = {
Round: function(num, dec) {
return Math.round(num * Math.pow(10,dec)) / Math.pow(10,dec);
}
};
Many other custom code modules - also included via require() statements - need to call the utility functions. They make calls like this:
module.exports = {
Init: function(pie) {
// does lots of other stuff, but now needs to round a number
// using the custom rounding fn provided in the common util code
console.log(util.Round(pie, 2)); // ReferenceError: util is not defined
}
};
The node.js file that is actually run is very simple (well, for this example). It just require()'s in the code and kicks off the custom code's Init() fn, like this:
var util = require("./utilities.js");
var customCode = require("./programCode.js");
customCode.Init(Math.PI);
Well, this doesn't work, I get a "ReferenceError: util is not defined" coming from the customCode. I know everything in each required file is "private" and this is why the error is occuring, but I also know that the variable holding the utility code object has GOT to be stored somewhere, perhaps hanging off of global?
I searched through global but didn't see any reference to utils in there. I was thinking of using something like global.utils.Round in the custom code.
So the question is, given that the utility code could be referred to as anything really (var u, util, or utility), how in heck can I organize this so that other code modules can see these utilities?
There are at least two ways to solve this:
If you need something from another module in a file, just require it. That's the easy one.
Provide something which actually builds the module for you. I will explain this in a second.
However, your current approach won't work as the node.js module system doesn't provide globals as you might expect them from other languages. Except for the things exported with module.exports you get nothing from the required module, and the required module doesn't know anything of the requiree's environment.
Just require it
To avoid the gap mentioned above, you need to require the other module beforehand:
// -- file: ./programCode.js
var util = require(...);
module.exports = {
Init: function(pie) {
console.log(util.Round(pie, 2));
}
};
requires are cached, so don't think too much about performance at this point.
Keep it flexible
In this case you don't directly export the contents of your module. Instead, you provide a constructor that will create the actual content. This enables you to give some additional arguments, for example another version of your utility library:
// -- file: ./programCode.js
module.exports = {
create: function(util){
return {
Init: function(pie) {
console.log(util.Round(pie, 2));
}
}
}
};
// --- other file
var util = require(...);
var myModule = require('./module').create(util);
As you can see this will create a new object when you call create. As such it will consume more memory as the first approach. Thus I recommend you to just require() things.
i have seen this code :
var myNet = require ("net");
and in some function:
function foo (x,y) {
var myNewNet = new myNet();
myNewNet.createServer(x,y);
}
why does the code above create a new object? what is the mechanism stands behind that?
one more question, how do i create a static var in node.js, for example a id number that has to be unique.
i came with this option for static variable:
var id =0;
and put it on the global scope, is it ok?
The require statement basically is like an import; it takes an external library and makes it available in your code.
If you ever look in an external module, you will notice that it's just normal node.js js code. It has EXPORT statements in it. Those statements are what gets made available when you require something. Check out http://howtonode.org/creating-custom-modules
There is a GLOBAL keyword in node.js you can use to make something global
GLOBAL.IP_ADDRESS = "..."
As #Raynos says, it's not usually a good idea to do that, so another options is to export a constant from a module, so you can create a module and do
exports.STATIC_CONSTANT = "";
and then once you import the module you can do
var mod = require('mymodule');
mod.STATIC_CONSTANT;
EDIT, to answer you comment, the line
var myNet = require("net")
causes myNet to be whatever the net module exports. It must be exporting a function, so
var newNet = new myNet()
creates a new instance of the net object. From there
myNewNet.createServer()
is just invoking a method on the object you just created.
Theory:
One of the things that appeals to me about node.js is using it as a command line tool.
In theory, I can write libraries in Javascript and place them in my ~/.node_libraries directory, and then then I can reuse those libraries.
So for instance, I have a text.js in ~/.node_libraries, and it has a bunch of text-related functions I use over and over (depunctuate(), tokenize_text(), things like that).
The beauty of this is that I could use the same text.js file with my command-line scripts and server side. Right now I'm doing all that text processing stuff with Python, but I'd like to just stick to one language.
Practice:
AFAICT, in order to create a node.js module, I have to attach everything that I want to be available to exports or this. I.e., in text.js, I have to do:
exports.depunctuate = depunctuate
or
this.depunctuate = depunctuate
If I use exports, I have problems with using the library server-side à la:
<script src=text.js></script>
because then I get exports is not defined errors.
If I use this, I avoid the error, but everything I export ends up getting attached to the window object.
Is there some way I can set up these libraries that avoid both of these problems? For instance, is there some way I can wrap the exporting of exports so that the var will be apparent to node, but not when it's used in a plain Javascript file on a server?
How about testing for the existence of the exports object before sticking stuff in it?
This has worked well for me so far, but maybe there are better ideas out there:
if(typeof(exports) !== 'undefined' && exports !== null) {
exports.foo = foo;
exports.bar = bar;
}
In CoffeeScript, this can be done a little more tersely:
[exports.foo, exports.bar] = [foo, bar] if exports?
so this comes into a namespacing issue. Unless a function is called with the new operator you will get a this context === to window (global). A way to dodge this is:
(function( exports ) {
/* put your depuncuate definition here to keep it from leaking to the global */
exports.depunctuate = depunctuate;
})( (typeof exports === 'undefined') ? myAppNamespace : exports );