cecil

When creating an entire NodeJs module is just too much work

What does it do?

cecil lets you run (and distribute) single-file NodeJS scripts that require external dependencies, without the need for maintaining an entire module and package.json

A REPL is also included, to give you a node-like repl that allows you to include (and automatically install) npm dependencies while in the shell

Quick Start

Write a quick testFile.js script like this:

// This is a simple script just to show that you can use functionality from an npm module.

// In Cecil scripts, there is a global "include" function provided to get npm packages.
// We can optionally provide a second argument to specify the specific version to use.
var _ = include('lodash');

var odd = _.filter([1, 2, 3], function(n) {
  return n % 2 === 1;
});

console.log(odd);

That's it!

Next, install cecil globally

npm install -g cecil

Now just invoke your script!

cecil ./testFile
> [ 1, 3 ]

You can even do some unix magic and make the scripts executable!

First, make sure the script is executable, of course

chmod a+x testFile.js

Next, add the correct shebang to the top of the file:

#! /usr/bin/env cecil
...

And then invoke the script

./testFile.js
> [ 1, 3 ]

REPL

A REPL is provided so you can interactively work with npm dependencies without setting up an entire project:

cecil-repl
> var lodash = include('lodash');
undefined
> lodash.filter([1,2,3], function(x) { return x % 2 == 1; });
[ 1, 3 ]

Why?

I wanted the ability to write small, lightweight, and self-contained scripts

• Write self-contained gists of node code
• You can put multiple scripts in the same folder without conflicting dependencies
• You can distribute single files, instead of scripts with package.json files
• You can experiment with new npm modules very easily. (Even compare different versions of the same module.)
• I personally prefer scripting in Node rather than Perl/Bash/etc

How does it work?

• It parses your code for calls to include(name [, version]); to find your dependencies
  • The name is required
  • The version is optional. It must be any valid NPM semver version. If latest, then NPM will be queried every time to get the latest version number.
• It will use npm to install these modules into the .cecil directory in your home directory
• It even supports concurrently loading different versions of the same module! (I have no idea why you'd want to do that but it was easy to implement.)
• You still use require() for core modules, like path or fs

Caveats

• Both name and version must be LITERAL values. IE: they must both be strings. (Of course, version is optional.)
  • (Dependency resolution is done before anything is run. Dynamic loading of modules would require everything to be async, and I didn't feel that was worth it.)
• In the REPL, there is currently no support for multi-line commands. Need to figure out how best to handle that.
• You can't require() other cecil scripts. Right now the best you can do is to use process.argv[0] (which is the cecil executable) to spawn a new process calling the other script. I plan to add support for include('./foo.js') in a future version of cecil.