npm-install-fetch

Fetch External Resources on NPM Package Installation

About

This Node.js module provides an API and CLI for automatically fetching external resources during the install step of the Node Package Manager (NPM). It is primarily intended to let large NPM modules have a small NPM module distribution size, as the NPM registry dislikes too large (more than a few MB) distribution tarballs (mainly because it keeps all versions of an NPM module and this way it would get flooded with a massive amount of data).

Installation

$ npm install npm-install-fetch --save-dev

Usage

There are three distinct ways of using it:

1. Command-Line Interface (CLI) with CLI Options:

   • Example package.json (single resource only):

     {
         "dependencies": {
             "npm-install-fetch": "latest"
         },
         "scripts": {
             "install": "npm-install-fetch -n \"Example 1.2.3\" -o example.tgz https://github.com/example/example/archive/1.2.3.tar.gz"
         }
     }

   • Supported CLI Options:

     • -h, --help: show usage help
     • -V, --version: show program version information
     • -c <file>, --config <file>: path to YAML configuration file (default: "npm-install-fetch.yaml")
     • -a <arch>, --arch <arch>: ensure system architecture matches (default: "*")
     • -p <platform>, --platform <platform>: ensure system platform matches (default: "*")
     • -n <name>, --name <name>: name of resource (default: "")
     • -d, --decompress: decompress input
     • -e, --extract: extract archive to individual files
     • -s <number>, --strip <number>: strip top-level directories from extracted files (default: 0)
     • -f <filter>, --filter <filter>: filter extracted files(s) (default: none)
     • -m <map-from>:<map-to>, --map <map-from>:<map-to>: map extracted file paths (default: none)
     • -o <file>, --output <file>: output directory or file (default: ".")

2. Command-Line Interface (CLI) with NPM Package Configuration Entry:

   • Example package.json (single resource):

     {
         "dependencies": {
             "npm-install-fetch": "latest"
         },
         "scripts": {
             "install": "npm-install-fetch"
         },
         "npm-install-fetch": {
             "name":    "Example 1.2.3",
             "input":   "https://github.com/example/example/archive/1.2.3.tar.gz",
             "output":  "example.tgz"
         }
     }

   • Example package.json (multiple resources):

     {
         "dependencies": {
             "npm-install-fetch": "latest"
         },
         "scripts": {
             "install": "npm-install-fetch"
         },
         "npm-install-fetch": [ {
             "name":    "Example1 1.2.3",
             "input":   "https://github.com/example1/example1/archive/1.2.3.tar.gz",
             "output":  "example1.tgz"
         }, {
             "name":    "Example2 1.2.3",
             "input":   "https://github.com/example2/example2/archive/1.2.3.tar.gz",
             "output":  "example2.tgz"
         } ]
     }

   • Supported Configuration Entries:

     • arch?: string: ensure system architecture matches (default: "*")
     • platform?: string: ensure system platform matches (default: "*")
     • name?: string: name of resource (default: "")
     • input: string: URL of resource
     • decompress?: boolean: decompress resource (default: false)
     • extract?: boolean: extract archive to individual files (default: false)
     • strip?: number: strip top-level directories from extracted files (default: 0)
     • filter?: (string|[string+]|function): filter extracted files(s) (default: none)
     • map?: ([string,string]|[[string,string]+]|function): map extracted file paths (default: none)
     • output?: string: output directory or file (default: ".")

3. Command-Line Interface (CLI) with YAML Configuration File:

   • Example package.json:

     {
         "dependencies": {
             "npm-install-fetch": "latest"
         },
         "scripts": {
             "install": "npm-install-fetch"
         }
     }

   • Example npm-install-fetch.yaml (single resource):

     - name:    Example 1.2.3
       input:   https://github.com/example/example/archive/1.2.3.tar.gz
       output:  example.tgz

   • Example npm-install-fetch.yaml (multiple resources):

     - name:    Example1 1.2.3
       input:   https://github.com/example1/example1/archive/1.2.3.tar.gz
       output:  example1.tgz
     
     - name:    Example2 1.2.3
       input:   https://github.com/example2/example2/archive/1.2.3.tar.gz
       output:  example2.tgz

   • Supported Configuration Entries:

     • arch?: string: ensure system architecture matches (default: "*")
     • platform?: string: ensure system platform matches (default: "*")
     • name?: string: name of resource (default: "")
     • input: string: URL of resource
     • decompress?: boolean: decompress resource (default: false)
     • extract?: boolean: extract archive to individual files (default: false)
     • strip?: number: strip top-level directories from extracted files (default: 0)
     • filter?: (string|[string+]|function): filter extracted files(s) (default: none)
     • map?: ([string,string]|[[string,string]+]|function): map extracted file paths (default: none)
     • output?: string: output directory or file (default: ".")

4. Application Programming Interface (API):

   • Example package.json:

     {
         "dependencies": {
             "npm-install-fetch": "latest"
         },
         "scripts": {
             "install": "node npm-install.js"
         }
     }

   • Example npm-install.js (single resource):

     const fetch = require("npm-install-fetch")
     
     fetch({
         name:    "Example 1.2.3",
         input:   "https://github.com/example/example/archive/1.2.3.tar.gz",
         output:  "example.tgz"
     })

   • Example npm-install.js (multiple resources):

     const fetch = require("npm-install-fetch")
     
     fetch([ {
         name:    "Example1 1.2.3",
         input:   "https://github.com/example1/example1/archive/1.2.3.tar.gz",
         output:  "example1.tgz"
     }, {
         name:    "Example2 1.2.3",
         input:   "https://github.com/example2/example2/archive/1.2.3.tar.gz",
         output:  "example2.tgz"
     } ])

   • Supported Configuration Options:

     • arch?: string: ensure system architecture matches (default: "*")
     • platform?: string: ensure system platform matches (default: "*")
     • name?: string: name of resource (default: "")
     • input: string: URL of resource
     • decompress?: boolean: decompress resource (default: false)
     • extract?: boolean: extract archive to individual files (default: false)
     • strip?: number: strip top-level directories from extracted files (default: 0)
     • filter?: (string|[string+]|function): filter extracted files(s) (default: none)
     • map?: ([string,string]|[[string,string]+]|function): map extracted file paths (default: none)
     • output?: string: output directory or file (default: ".")

Example 1: Large External Data

The module fasttext-lid depends on a large 128MB model, available from Facebook. The package.json of module fasttext-lid is:

{
    "name":        "fasttext-lid",
    [...]
    "dependencies": {
        "npm-install-fetch":       "0.9.8",
        [...]
    },
    "scripts": {
        "install":        "npm-install-fetch"
        [...]
    },
    "npm-install-fetch": {
        "name":    "FastText LID-176 model",
        "input":   "https://s3-us-west-1.amazonaws.com/fasttext-vectors/supervised_models/lid.176.bin",
        "output":  "fasttext-lid-model.bin"
    }
}

Example 2: Large Internal Data

The module typopro-web has large generated fonts in its source-tree under web/. The .npmignore (for npm publish) and package.json (for npm install) files of module typopro-web are:

.git
node_modules
web

{
    "name":        "typopro-web",
    [...]
    "dependencies": {
        "npm-install-fetch":  "1.0.0",
        "shx":                "0.3.0"
    },
    "scripts": {
        "install":            "npm-install-fetch",
        "uninstall":          "shx rm -rf web"
    },
    "npm-install-fetch": {
        "name":    "TypoPRO: Fonts for Professional Typography (WEB) 4.0.0",
        "input":   "https://github.com/rse/typopro-web/archive/4.0.0.tar.gz",
        "extract": true,
        "strip":   1,
        "filter":  [ "web/*" ],
        "output":  "."
    }
}

Notice

Options strip, filter and map require option extract to be meaningful. The options are executed in the order strip first, filter second and map third by the underlying decompress module. Keep this order in mind, as filter sees only already stripped paths and map sees only already filtered paths.

License

Copyright © 2018-2024 Dr. Ralf S. Engelschall (http://engelschall.com/)

Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:

The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.