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require.js require a module with index.js

So I'm trying to set up Typescript and Chutzpah for testing purposes. Typescript is set up to output in this format:
define(['require', 'exports', './someModule'], function(require, exports, someModule) {
//examplecode
});
Which works fine, the problem occurs when someModule is actually a directory with an index.js.
/app
app.js
/someModule
index.js
require.js is unable to resolve someModule in this way and the test fails.
Is there any way to tell require.js that this is a module?

RequireJS won't automatically check for the presence of index.js and load that as your module. You need to tell RequireJS that when you want to load someModule, it should load someModule/index. I'd set a map in my call to require.config:
require.config({
[ ... ]
map: {
'*': {
someModule: 'someModule/index',
}
},
});
You have to adjust the name you give there so that it is a path relative to your baseUrl. It's not clear from the information you give in your question what it should be.
(For the record, there's also a packages setting that you could probably tweak to do what you want but putting something packages says "this is a package", which is not what you appear to have here. So I would not use it for what you are trying to do.)

I didn't like the configuration in map either. The most simple way I accomplished this was writing a plugin for require.
Let's name the plugin mod, where it is to be used as mod!module/someModule, you can also call it index as in index!module/someModule, whatever suits you best.
define(function(require, exports, module) {
// loading module/someModule/index.js with `mod!`
var someModule = require('mod!module/someModule');
// whatever this is about ..
module.exports = { .. };
});
So lets assume you have paths set in require's configuration with some sort of project structure:
- app
- modules
- someModule/index.js // the index we want to load
- someModule/..
- someModule/..
- etc
- plugins
- mod.js // plugin to load a module with index.js
Requires config:
require.config({
paths: {
'module': 'app/modules',
// the plugin we're going to use so
// require knows what mod! stands for
'mod': 'app/plugins/mod.js'
}
});
To read all the aspects of how to write a plugin, read the docs at requirejs.org. The simplest version would be to just rewrite the name of the requested "module" you are attempting to access and pass it back to load.
app/plugins/mod.js
(function() {
define(function () {
function parse(name, req) {
return req.toUrl(name + '/index.js');
}
return {
normalize: function(name, normalize) {
return normalize(name);
},
load:function (name, req, load) {
req([parse(name, req)], function(o) {
load(o);
});
}
};
});
})();
This is not production code, it's just a simple way to demonstrate that requires config wasn't meant to solve problems like this.

Using D3.JS and the sankey plugin in a require.js module

I'm trying to build a requirejs module giving client code the options to render stuff with d3.js. The first plugin I want to use is a sankey diagram.
My module so far:
define(['d3'], function(ignore) {
console.log("bef", d3);
require(['sankey.js']);
console.log("aft", d3);
d3.sankey();
return {
...
d3: d3,
renderSankey: function(options) {
...
}
}
The sankey.js script uses the global d3 variable and adds the function sankey(). (I tried both btw, define(['d3'], function(ignore) and define(['d3'], function(d3), exactly the same result).
The error: TypeError: d3.sankey is not a function, no matter if I try to call it directly as the code shows or like this.d3.sankey() in the renderSankey function.
The console output says (both times, before and after the require(...) call:
sankey: d3.sankey()
No matter what I try, it won't work. I feel like I missed something JS specific about shadowing, but why is there a sankey function, when I console.log the object and a row later, when I try to call I get an error? What am I doing wrong?
info:
I'm using this inside a splunk html dashboard, this is maybe important...
I don't want the client code to import the dependicies (with about 100 plugins to come, this would be a pain)
When I just copy the content of the sankey.js into my module, everything works fine
/edit: Here is the Require configuration (given by the Splunk Dashboard)
require.config({
baseUrl: "{{SPLUNKWEB_URL_PREFIX}}/static/js",
waitSeconds: 0 // Disable require.js load timeout
});

The require call you are using to load sankey is asynchronous. It will launch the loading of sankey but by the time require returns, sankey is not loaded. You should change your code to:
define(['d3', 'sankey'], function (d3) {
d3.sankey();
I take it that d3 also leaks the symbol d3 in the global space but AMD modules should not rely on global symbols unless these are part of the runtime environment (e.g. window, document).
You also need to set your RequireJS configuration to make sankey dependent on d3 because the define above does not by itself ensure that d3 will load before sankey. So you need this in your configuration:
shim: {
sankey: ['d3']
}
This makes sankey dependent on d3. (Note that shim can only be used to affect the loading of files that are not proper AMD module. sankey does not call define to register itself, and thus is not a proper AMD module, and we can use shim for it.)
Also, module names should generally not have .js in them so when you want to load the plugin, load it as sankey, not sankey.js.

Okay, I think #Louis and I just misunderstood each other. This may be caused by my own stupidity, since I wasn't aware that a configuration of require.js can be done anywhere (and not only once in the root file). How ever, to still get the Splunk specific part I post this answer (instead of accepting Louis'):
I added a new app to my splunk environment to (a viz app). I actually configure the dependencies first (in the by other splunk apps loadable d3-viz module):
require.config({
paths: {
'd3': '../app/D3_Viz/d3', // d3.js
'sankey': '../app/D3_Viz/sankey', // sankey.js
'XYZ': 'all the paths go here'
},
shim: {
'sankey': ['d3'],
'XYZ': ['d3'],
// all the dependecies go here
}
});
define(['splunkjs/ready!', 'jquery', 'd3'],
function(mvc, $, ignore) {
var d3Vis = {
...
renderSankey: function(options) {
// load dependencies dynamically
require(['sankey'], function() {
// actually render things
});
},
renderXYZ: function(options) {
require(['XYZ'], function() {
...
});
},
...
}
}
return d3Vis;
All my dependencies can be configured in the viz-app (and not in the client code using the app, this has been my fundamental missunderstanding of require.js); the only thing to do is loading the app/viz as a whole (in this example in a HTML dashboard:
require([
"splunkjs/mvc",
"splunkjs/mvc/utils",
"splunkjs/mvc/tokenutils",
"underscore",
"jquery",
"splunkjs/mvc/simplexml",
"splunkjs/mvc/headerview",
"splunkjs/mvc/footerview",
...
"../app/D3_Viz/viz"
],
function(
mvc,
utils,
TokenUtils,
_,
$,
DashboardController,
HeaderView,
FooterView,
...
d3Viz
){
... splunk specific stuff
// No dependencies have to be configured
// in the client code
d3Viz.renderSankey({...});
}
);

Webpack: unable to require automatically resolved dependencies using variables

While working on a Web app using Webpack to manage JavaScript dependencies, I stumbled upon the problem i'm going to describe.
Loading dependencies passing strings to require() works beautifully:
// main.js
var jQuery = require('jquery');
Here, jquery is installed with Bower, and Webpack is correctly configured to automatically resolve Bower modules.
Now, I'm working on the problem of conditionally loading modules, with particular regard to the situation where modules have to be downloaded from a CDN, or from the local server if the CDN fails. I use scriptjs to asynchronously load from the CDN, by the way. The code I'm writing is something like this:
var jQuery = undefined;
try {
jQuery = require('jquery-cdn');
} catch (e) {
console.log('Unable to load jQuery from CDN. Loading local version...');
require('script!jquery');
jQuery = window.jQuery;
}
// jQuery available here
and this code works beautifully as well.
Now, since I obviously have a lot of dependencies (Handlebars, Ember, etc.) that I want to try to load from a CDN first, this code starts to get a little redundant, so the most logical thing I try to do is to refactor it out into a function:
function loadModule(module, object) {
var lib = undefined;
try {
lib = require(module + '-cdn');
} catch (e) {
console.log('Cannot load ' + object + ' from CDN. Loading local version...');
require('script!' + module);
lib = window[object];
}
return lib;
}
var jQuery = loadModule('jquery', 'jQuery');
var Handlebars = loadModule('handlebars', 'Handlebars');
// etc...
The problem is that Webpack has a particular behaviour when dealing with expressions inside require statements, that hinders my attempts to load modules in the way described above. In particular, when using an expression inside require it
tries to include all files that are possible with your expression
The net effect is a huge pile of error messages when I try to run Webpack with the above code.
Though the linked resources suggest to explicitly declare the path of the JavaScript files to include, what I fail to get is how to do the same thing when I cannot, or don't want to, pass a precise path to require, but rather use the automatically resolved modules, as shown.
Thanks all
EDIT:
I still don't known how to use expressions to load those scripts, however, I designed a workaround. Basically, the idea is to explicitly write the require('script') inside a callback function, and then dinamically call that function when it's time. More precisely, I prepared a configuration file like this:
// config.js
'use strict';
module.exports = {
'lib': {
'jquery': {
'object': 'jQuery',
'dev': function() { require('script!jquery'); },
'dist': function() { return require('jquery-cdn'); },
'cdn': '//ajax.googleapis.com/ajax/libs/jquery/1.11.1/jquery.min.js'
},
'handlebars': {
// ...
}
}
};
Inside my main code I, then, define an array of resources to load, like:
var config = require('./config.js');
var resources = [ config.lib.jquery, config.lib.handlebars, ... ];
And then when I have to load the development version, or the distribution version, I dinamically call:
// Inside some kind of cycle
// resource = resources[index]
try {
window[resource.object] = resource.dist();
} catch (e) {
console.log('Cannot load ' + resource.object + ' from CDN. Loading local version...');
resource.dev();
}
Here there's a more complete example of this in action.

Backbone.js + require.js : Wait until file is loaded

I'm using backbone.js and require.js. I have a script with files dependencies but the problem is that a file is not loaded before executing my script. So, a function is not defined. Here is the code exemple :
define([
'jquery',
'jqueryUi',
'holder',
'knob',
'jquery.ui.widget',
'iframeTransport',
'fileupload',
'knobScript',
], function($, ui, Holder) {
$(document).ready(function() {
$('#upload').fileupload({...}); // This one is unedefined because the script from the file fileupload is not completely loaded
});
});
Is someone has a solution to be sure that the script fileuplaod called in define is fully loaded before executing the script with the function (functionFromFileupload) ?
Thank for your help

To complement Evgeniy's comment: The problem is not that fileupload is loaded after your function. It will be loaded before running your function, that is the contract of Require. (If you can confirm it doesn't, then it would probably be a misconfiguration or less probably a bug of Require.)
Most probably the problem is that, sometimes, fileupload may be loaded before jQuery. Thus, it does not find the jQuery object to plug to and $(...).fileupload(...) fails. Use shim in the Require configuration, e.g. as:
require.config({
...
shim: {
fileupload: {
deps: ["jquery"]
}
...
}
...
});
You will probably have to shim other things too, e.g. jQueryUI.

RequireJS plugin: load timeouts experienced when using plugin

Using RequireJS I'm building an app which make extensive use of widgets. For each widget I have at least 3 separate files:
request.js containing code for setting up request/response handlers to request a widget in another part of my application
controller.js containing handling between model and view
view.js containing handling between user and controller
Module definition in request.js:
define(['common/view/widget/entity/term/list/table/controller'],
function(WidgetController) { ... });
Module definition in controller.js:
define(['common/view/widget/entity/term/list/table/view'],
function(WidgetView) { ... });
Module definition of view.js is:
define(['module','require'],function(module,require) {
'use strict';
var WidgetView = <constructor definition>;
return WidgetView;
});
I have lots of these little situations as above in the case of widgets I have developed. What I dislike is using the full path every time when a module is requiring another module and both are located in the same folder. I'd like to simply specify as follows (assuming we have a RequireJS plugin which solves this for us):
define(['currentfolder!controller'],
function(WidgetController) { ... });
For this, I have written a small plugin, as I couldn't find it on the web:
define({
load: function (name, parentRequire, onload, config) {
var path = parentRequire.toUrl('.').substring(config.baseUrl.length) + '/' + name;
parentRequire([path], function (value) {
onload(value);
});
}
});
As you might notice, in its basic form it looks like the example of the RequireJS plugins documentation.
Now in some cases, the above works fine (e.g. from the request.js to the controller.js), but in other cases a load timeout occurs (from controller.js to view.js). When I look at the paths which are generated, all are proper RequireJS paths. Looking at the load timeouts, the following is logged:
Timestamp: 13-09-13 17:27:10
Error: Error: Load timeout for modules: currentfolder!view_unnormalized2,currentfolder!view
http://requirejs.org/docs/errors.html#timeout
Source File: http://localhost/app/vendor/requirejs/require.js?msv15z
Line: 159
The above log was from a test I did with only loading the view.js from controller.js using currentfolder!view in the list of modules in the define statement. Since I only requested currentfolder!view once, I'm confused as to why I both see currentfolder!view_unnormalized2 and currentfolder!view in the message.
Any idea as to why this might be happening?

My answer may not answer your primary questions, but it will help you achieve what you're trying to do with your plugin.
In fact, Require.js support relative paths for requiring modules when using CommonJS style. Like so:
define(function( require, exports, module ) {
var relativeModule = require("./subfolder/module");
module.exports = function() {
console.log( relativeModule );
};
});