client_require
v0.4.0
Published
NPM modules packaged with a CommonJS module interface and served synchronously to the client.
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Client Require
This library allows you to run your Node.JS application on the client side using standard CommonJS module syntax. It supports loading client files from dependency NPM packages and easily branching between client and server modules when necessary.
In development mode, loaded package files will present error messages in the browser which match the filename and line number of the related server-side file.
In production mode, packages will be placed within a single closure with no leaking scope.
Usage
In your package.json, list your dependencies as you normally would, and add an additional configuration field called "client_dependencies", which is a list of module names.
{
"main": "app.js",
"dependencies": {
"client_require": "*",
"uuid-v4": "*"
}
"client_dependencies": ['uuid-v4']
}Type npm install as usual to install the dependencies.
In your Node.js app, pass an instance of your HTTP server to fhtagn:
var client_require = require('client_require');
var http = require('http');
var app = http.createServer(function (req, res) {
var out = "<html><head>";
client_require.getScripts(function(e, srcs) {
for (var i in srcs) {
out += '<script src="'+srcs[i]+'"></script>';
}
out += "</head><body>Ia! Ia!</body></html>";
res.end(out);
});
}).listen(3000, 'localhost');
client_require.listen(app);Client/Server Alternation
If you want to have separate versions of particular files for the client and the server, you can do so by placing the module in a directory called client/ or server/, respectively.
Example:
server/
app.js
client/
app.jsThis will create a module file at the root path app.js. client/app.js will
be loaded on the client and server/app.js will be loaded on the server.
On the server-side, you must use the require method exported by the library
to properly load server-side files.
API Methods
getScripts
Will callback with an array of script srcs to inject into the page, in order.
listen
Attaches a request event to the HTTP server to serve files which start with the provided web_root configuration.
require
This is useful on the server-side, as the standard require function is not
able to be overloaded. This will make sure you load server/foo.js when there
is no root foo.js available, which mimicks the client-side functionality.
Configuration
web_root
The root web path to load files from. Defaults to /js/.