Compile, Minify, Lint

multic attempts to fix the compilation, minification, linting inconsistancies by providing:

• simple, consistent API
• consistent error and warning level objects
• sane defaults for errors and warnings
• converged lint rules

Supported sources

• Jade
• HTML
• LESS
• SASS via libsass / node-sass
• CSS
• CoffeeScript
• ECMAScript6 via Babel (ex: 6to5)
• JavaScript
• Angular module scripts from HTML/JADE templates via ng-html2js

Install for your app

cd /path/to/your/app
npm install multic --save

Usage

Pattern

var multic = require('multic');

// with promise
var promise = multic(source|path[, options])[.file].coffee|css|es6|html|jade|less|sass[.css|html|js][.min][.write]([target_file]);

// with callback function(err, res) {}
multic(source|path[, options])[.file].coffee|css|es6|html|jade|less|sass[.css|html|js][.min](callback);

// write to output file with callback
multic(source|path[, options])[.file].coffee|css|es6|html|jade|less|sass[.css|html|js][.min].write(target_file, callback);

Examples

JavaScript string minification

var promise = multic(script, {file: 'my/file/name.js'}).js.min();

Jade file->HTML compilation

var promise = multic('my/jade/file.jade').file.jade.html();

Compile LESS file to CSS + write to output file

var promise = multic('my/sass/file.scss').file.less.css.write('my/deployment/dist.css');

Compile SASS file to CSS + minify + write to output file

var promise = multic('my/sass/file.scss').file.sass.css.min.write('my/deployment/dist.min.css');

Lint only (syntax errors and warnings, no processing)

var promise = multic('my/js/file.js').file.js()

Promise response

var promise = multic('my/sass/file.scss').file.sass.css.min();
promise.then( function (res) {
  console.log('source:', res.source);
  console.log('compiled:', res.compiled);
  console.log('minified:', res.minified);
}, function (err) {
  console.error('error:', err);
  console.error('response object is also available:', err.res);
} );

Callback signiture

• err: null or Error instance (same as the first item in res.errors)
• res: response object

Response object properties

{
  source:   '#id1.class1\n  h1 Hello\n  include templates/_hi\n',
  compiled: '<div id='id1' class='class1'>\n  <h1>Hello</h1>\n  <h2>Hi</h2>\n</div>\n',
  minified: '<div id='id1' class='class1'> <h1>Hello</h1> <h2>Hi</h2></div>',
  includes: ['/home/johndoe/Projects/testapp/markup/templates/_hi.jade'],
  errors:   [],
  warnings: []
}

• source: (string) source code (if loaded from file)
• compiled: (string) compiled, unminified code (on compilation requests)
• minified: (string) minified code (on minification requests)
• includes: (Array) of *(string)*s included files (only used for Jade, Less and Sass files with includes/import)
• errors: (Array) of (Error)-inherited objects
• warnings: (Array) of (Error)-inherited objects

Consequent Errors and Warnings

Objects created using instances of object inherited from JavaScript-native Error class:

{
  title:   'Syntax Error',
  message: 'Unexpected <',
  file:    'src/test.coffee',
  line:    2,
  column:  6,
  sourceLines: {
    0: 'x = (a) ->',
    1: '  a + 1',
    2: '  x = <-',
    3: ''
  }
}

multic attempts to provide a unified interface for all errors and warnings. You get these properties on the errors/warnings:

• message: (string) literal description of the error/warning
• title: (string) short description of the error/warning
• file: (string) file path of error
• line: (number) indication of error/warning line (0-based index, i.e. first line is line 0)
• column: (number) indication of error/warning column in line (0-based index, i.e. first column is column 0)
• sourceLines: (number) a snippet of the source code around the error/warning. Keys are 0-based line numbers, values are the lines (without the \n character at the end). 11 lines (error/warning line + 5 previous + 5 following lines) or less (when the line is near the start or end of file).

WARNING! Although these properties are available most of the time, keep in mind that:

• jade related errors and warnings usually will not have column property
• file property is only added if
  • source is loaded from file, or
  • you have specified {file: '/my/file/name.ext'} as option with your source string (see below)
• some exotic errors may not have anything but message (and file if source is loaded from file or you sp)

Options

file file path for source string

This is useful for error messages and to define include path start point for Jade, Less and Sass includes/imports

multic(source_string, {file: '*path/to/my/source/file.ext*'}).min(callback);

moduleName string for Angulat module generator (html.js and jade.js compilers)

Define Angular module name for your markup.

multic(source_string, {moduleName: 'name.space.joe'}).html.js(callback);

Configurable lint rules

See table of lint rules

multic(source_file_path, {
  max_line_length:  80,
  file_end_newline: false
  // ...
}).file.min(callback);

Turn off linting

Pass {lint: false} option explicitly to disable linting.

multic(source, {lint: false}).js.min(callback);

Utilized minifiers

• html: html-minifier
• javascript: uglify-js
• css: clean-css

Utilized external linters

• coffee: coffee-lint
• css: csslint
• html: htmllint
• js & es6: jshint

Promises

Used library: promise

Coming soon (TODO)

• Missing lint rule implementations and tests, added descriptions and links for rules
• CLI