No-Face

No-Face (from Spirited Away) lets you quickly and easily start PhantomJS processes, and exchange data with them, from within Node.js.

var noface = require('noface')

var ph = noface(function (channel) {
  // Runs within PhantomJS. (No access to closure!)
  channel.onmessage = function (event) {
    channel.send(event.data)
  }
})

ph.on('open', function () {
  ph.send('Hello world!')
})

ph.on('message', function (message) {
  ph.close()
})

Installing

npm install noface

Synopsis

noface(src, options)

No-Face opens a WebSocket connection between Node.js and PhantomJS. The src callback function is executed within PhantomJS on the socket open event, and receives the WebSocket instance.

Rather than a function, it may also be a string of JavaScript code. But in either case, note that it will not have access to closures, but will have access to all of the PhantomJS API.

The optional parameter options contains any additional options to pass to child_process.spawn. If you include an array args in options, these will be passed to the PhantomJS child.

By default, the PhantomJS child exits when the channel closes. Override channel.onclose to change this behavior. The default error handler in PhantomJS is also set to exit the process and emit an error event in Node.js.

The return value is a NoFace instance.

Events

• open: The PhantomJS child has started and the WebSocket connection is established.
• close: The WebSocket connection is closed. By default, the PhantomJS child will automatically exit.
• message: The PhantomJS child sends a message. Receives a string or Buffer.
• error: Startup failed or the child did not exit cleanly. Receives an Error instance.

Methods

• send: Send a message to the PhantomJS child. Accepts a string or a Buffer.
• close: Close the WebSocket connection. By default, the PhantomJS child will automatically exit.

Properties

• child: Contains the ChildProcess instance from child_process.
• channel: While the WebSocket channel is open, contains the WebSocket instance from faye-websocket.

Hacking the code

git clone https://github.com/Two-Screen/noface.git
cd noface
npm install
npm test