xcfg

Cross-platform config file management made easy. Works great with command-line tools and Electron apps.

Overview

When building command-line tools and desktop apps with Node.js, there exists a common need for managing application configuration files.

xcfg is a package that saves you the trouble of validating config paths across multiple platforms and creating the config file. It makes config file management easy by handling all IO operations under the hood, and provides a simple get() and set() interface for individual configuration properties. JSON is used as the config file format to be easy on both machines and humans (and to eliminate the need for 3rd party dependencies).

Installation

$ cd node-project
$ npm install xcfg

Usage

Require the module and create a new instance:

var Xcfg = require('xcfg')
var xcfg = new Xcfg('net.jonbeebe.myapp')

On construction, after sanitizing the id, it is used to create a configuration file (if it doesn't already exist) at the following path: ~/.config/net.jonbeebe.myapp/config.json

After that, you can use the xcfg instance to get, set, and delete properties on the in-memory object:

xcfg.set('foo', 'bar')
xcfg.get('foo') // bar
xcfg.del('foo')
xcfg.get('foo') // undefined

The above will only manipulate the in-memory config instance. To persist changes to disk, use save():

xcfg.save()

And while there's a little more to it than that, that's the basic idea and really all you need to know to use this package. To see more methods and options, view the documentation.

Documentation

Build and run the documentation locally:

$ npm run docs
$ open ./docs/index.html

Tests

$ npm run test

All tests were written using the mocha and chai packages.

JavaScript Standard Style

This project conforms to the JavaScript Standard Style. You can check for style errors by running:

$ npm run lint

License

Copyright (c) 2017, Jonathan Beebe

Permission to use, copy, modify, and/or distribute this software for any purpose with or without fee is hereby granted, provided that the above copyright notice and this permission notice appear in all copies.

THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS" AND THE AUTHOR DISCLAIMS ALL WARRANTIES WITH REGARD TO THIS SOFTWARE INCLUDING ALL IMPLIED WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY AND FITNESS. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHOR BE LIABLE FOR ANY SPECIAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, OR CONSEQUENTIAL DAMAGES OR ANY DAMAGES WHATSOEVER RESULTING FROM LOSS OF USE, DATA OR PROFITS, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, NEGLIGENCE OR OTHER TORTIOUS ACTION, ARISING OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE USE OR PERFORMANCE OF THIS SOFTWARE.