bobby (the little builder)

Build your JavaScript projects the way you allways wanted!

bobby is a JavaScript preprocessor introducing @require('file.js') calls to easily give your projects a clean structure.

It recoursively parses your files starting at file1 [file2...] and include dependencies at the right place, but only once for the whole project. Simply put @require('path/lib.js') (CSS style @import will also work) where you want the file to be. Can't be easier.

Usage

Here's the helpscreen of bobby:

Usage: bobby [-cvs] [-b path] [-o out] file1 [file2...]

Options:
  -c, --compress  Compress output with UglifyJS                  [boolean]
  -o, --output    Output file. Defaults to stdout              
  -b, --base      Base directory of scripts relative to current
  -v, --verbose   Be more verbose and log every step             [boolean]
  -s, --strict    Exit when a requested file can't be found      [boolean]

The easiest way to combine all the files of your projects in the right order works like this:

bobby main.js > result.js

Tips

bobby is now available over npm. Simpy npm install -g bobby to get it running.

Alternatively, check out this repository and install via npm install -g ..

bobby becomes really powerfull when combined with tools like LiveReload or any other filesystem watcher. This way, bobby can build your project on the fly before you had even switched to your comandline (if you hadn't used vim, but of course you do...)

Options, explained

-c, --compress

Compresses (mangles names and minifies) your scripts through UglifyJS

-o, --output

Specify a path here that shall be used as ouput. When not given, result will be piped to stdout and logs will be written to bobby.log. If a output file is given, your terminal will show the most important steps, warnings and errors.

-b, --base

Specify a directory realtive to current that will be used as base for your required scripts (not the start-files and not the output file!)

-v, --verbose

Be more (really) verbose about requiring files

-s, --strict

When bobby can't find a specified file, it still will continue (if possible). With this option, execution will be aborted when a file can't be read.

Acknowledgements

Sponsor

Boinx Software

where I'm proud to work at with all the amazing people. They make cool software for OS X and iOS and payed me for the hours I worked at Bobby.

Libraries

optimist

for comandline option parsing

winston

a library for asynchronous logging to different transports

UglifyJS

for fast and efficient minifycation