Develop Reference

Firebase functions in multiple separate folders

My source code looks like this:
API/index.ts (includes 1 firebase function trigger)
Extra/index.ts which includes
exports.ml_files = require("./ai-func");
exports.authHandler = require("./user-function");
exports.fileUploadListen = require("./fileupload.listener");
// exports.graphql = require("../API/src/index");
Currently my functions source directory directory is Extra. How do I make sure that the functions defined in API also get included in the final build? If I try to use exports.graphql the build breaks.

You must move all source code into the "functions" folder for deployment. The CLI will only deploy content from that folder, and from nowhere else. It's not possible to configure it otherwise - you must have a single folder where everything lives. As such, paths given to require() that look outside the folder (as you are doing now with ..) will simply not work.

I would recommend to try this concept of separation explained here.
We use it every of our Firebase projects and we are very happy with it :)

webpack require with dynamic path

My colleague put something like this in our code:
const information = require('../relative/path/' + tag + '.json');
The funny thing is that it works, and I don't really see how.
I have created this minimal project:
$ head *.json main.js
==> 1.json <==
["message #1"]
==> 2.json <==
["message two"]
==> 3.json <==
["message III"]
==> package.json <==
{
"dependencies": {
"webpack": "^5.38.1"
"webpack-cli": "^4.7.2"
}
}
==> package-lock.json <==
...
==> main.js <==
const arg = process.argv[2] ? process.argv[2] : 1;
console.log(require(`./${arg}.json`)[0]);
when I run the original program, I get this:
$ node main.js 1
message #1
$ node main.js 2
message two
$ node main.js 3
message III
so now I compile with webpack
$ node_modules/.bin/webpack ./main.js
and it creates a dist directory with a single file it in, and that new bundled program works too:
$ node dist/main.js 1
message #1
$ node dist/main.js 2
message two
$ node dist/main.js 3
message III
and when I look inside the bundle, all the info is bundled:
When I remove the require from the program, and just print the arg, the bundled program is a single line.
So how does it do it?
somehow calculate every possible file?
just include everything from the current directory down?
Funny thing is in my simple example, package.json ended up in there too, but in the real one that gave me the idea, it didn't.
Does anybody know how this works?
I mean the simple practical answer for me is, never put variables in require... but I am still curious.
PS the real one is a web project. just used node and args for the example

Webpack always bundles all require'd files into the final output file (by default called bundle.js). You cannot require anything that was not bundled.
If you require something that is not a constant, as you pointed out, it might lead to some trouble. That is why eslint has a no-dynamic-require rule for that. But if you know what you are doing, everything is just fine.
Webpack uses some heuristics to support non-build-time-constant values (i.e. expressions) for require. The exact behavior is documented in webpack's documentation on dependency management.
As explained in that link, your require('../relative/path/' + tag + '.json') will lead webpack to determine:
Directory: ../relative/path
Regular expression: /^.*\.json$/
And will bundle all files matching that criterion.
When your require call is executed, it will provide that file that matches it exactly, or throw an error if that file was not bundled.
Important: This means, of course, that you cannot add files after bundling. You must have files in the right place, before bundling, so they can be found, added and ultimately resolved by webpack.
Also note that often times, you don't need to write your own webpack experiments. Webpack has plenty of official samples. E.g. your case is illustrated exactly by this official webpack sample.

only one Node_modules folder for all

hello and today i want to know if i can have only one node_modules folder for all my node js bots, note they are not in app form just single files that use ..... = require('module'); my point is that i have easily more than 7 bots and i go back and forth improving them and maintaining the node_modules folder can be tedius, is there a way where i can have only one folder with all my modules and just do .... = require('path/to/node_modules/module');
or .... = require('path/to/node_modules/'); could someone please point me in the right direction, because when i update my code on my various bots i have to make sure the module is installed, can i have only one node_modules folder???

I can think of these different options:
You can put all your bot files in the same directory and run them all from that directory so all the modules installed in that directory can be used by all the bot files.
You can install all your modules globally.
You could make one shared directory where you installed all the modules and then explicitly point to that every time you want to load a module by referencing that path. This seems less clean because every single user of a module has to know where to load it from.
For each module you want to use in a project, create symlinks to the place where the modules are actually installed. This doesn't seem like it saves any work over just installing the modules again for each bot though.

In another file say myLibs.js you could do something like
module.exports = {
lib1: require('lib1'),
...
libn: require('libn')
}
then in the original file you would do
var myLibs=require('./myLibs.js');
and reference them by myLibs.lib1...
A little clunky, I know, but it should work.

Javascript: get package.json data in gulpfile.js

Not a gulp-specific question per-se, but how would one get info from the package.json file within the gulpfile.js; For instance, I want to get the homepage or the name and use it in a task.

This is not gulp specific.
var p = require('./package.json')
p.homepage
UPDATE:
Be aware that "require" will cache the read results - meaning you cannot require, write to the file, then require again and expect the results to be updated.

Don't use require('./package.json') for a watch process, as using require will resolve the module as the results of the first request.
So if you are editing your package.json those edits won't work unless you stop your watch process and restart it.
For a gulp watch process it would be best to re-read the file and parse it each time that your task is executed, by using node's fs method
var fs = require('fs')
var json = JSON.parse(fs.readFileSync('./package.json'))

This is a good solution #Mangled Deutz. I myself first did that but it did not work (Back to that in a second), then I tried this solution:
# Gulpfile.coffee
requireJSON = (file) ->
fs = require "fs"
JSON.parse fs.readFileSync file
Now you should see that this is a bit verbose (even though it worked). require('./package.json') is the best solution:
Tip
-remember to add './' in front of the file name. I know its simple, but it is the difference between the require method working and not working.

If you are triggering gulp from NPM, like using "npm run build" or something
(This only works for gulp run triggers by NPM)
process.env.npm_package_Object
this should be seprated by underscore for deeper objects.
if you want to read some specific config in package.json like you want to read config object you have created in package.json
scripts : {
build: gulp
},
config : {
isClient: false.
}
then you can use
process.env.npm_package_**config_isClient**

Node.js package self-reference

Can package require itself and its subsystems?
For instance there is module:
src/deep/path/to/module.js
which need to require
src/another/module.js
Instead of:
require('./../../../another/module.js');
Can one just:
require('<self>/another/module.js');
?
For instance this might be useful in testing: test unit can reference its test object without long up-and-down-style path.
I have two considerations (but they do not satisfies this issue completely):
If package is already in node_modules folder it can reference to itself by its
canonical name (that in its package.json).
Package can create symlink to itself in its own node_modules folder (sic!). Haven't try it yet, possible will lead to infinite loop in some resolving cases.

Solution 1
Split it to different sub-projects, put each one into different folders. As an example:
sub.project.1/
sub.project.2/
in sub.project.1/
# cd ../sub.project.1
npm link
# cd ../sub.project.2
npm link sub.project.1
Then in sub.project.2 you can do it simply:
var something = require("sub.project.1")
This can remove the '../../...' relative path.
Note: it can be done in same folder/project, by doing this,
in the sub folders, the project self can be easily referred.
For example when both sub.project.1 and sub.project.2 replaced by my.project. And of course, all the names should be the name in package.json initialized by npm.
Solution 2
Create a link in the folder node_modules/
# cd node_modules
ln -s .. myProjectRootDir
#
# where: .. : means parent directory in linux shell
# '#' means comments in linux shell
#
Then it can be used under same level directory trees:
var something = require("myProjectRootDir/path/to/js/file")
Thus the "../../..." can change to path read more easily.
And if myProjectRootDir happens to be the project name and
package name in package.json, it's ok.
Solution 3
There are npm packages: require-self, install-self,
they do the similar things.
Solution 4
Write a new .js file where it's easy to require,
then put all the annoying relative references into it.
For example write it at node_modules/mymods.js
// mymod.js
module.exports.mod_one = require("../path/to/mod/one.js");
//...
Then require('mymod') can gives all the other modules.
This is not the best solution, all references of requiring
need to be doing by hand. But it's a single file, so it's
manageable, and centralize the references for future deployments.
One of the cons of this solution is, if you put it in
node_modules/ folder and this folder is ignored in git repository, you need to take care when pushing or branching the git repo.
When deleting the node_modules folder, the file can also be deleted by accidents.
There could be more solutions I don't know.

Well you can shorten it a little bit. You don't need the leading ./ in this case
require("../../../another/module.js");
And a little further by removing the trailing .js
require("../../../another/module");
Another answer is suggesting the use of process.cwd() but be very careful with this. Your require calls will only work if the app is initialized from the same directory.
From the sounds of it though, 4 directories is already pretty deep. You might want to considering fragmenting your large project into smaller, single-purpose modules. We would need more information on the project to know if that was the right decision though.

I often use process.cwd() to make things like this a little more manageable. This returns where the node application is actually running from and lets you create the path in a little cleaner fashion.
Something maybe like var x = require(process.cwd() + '/lib/module')
Without seeing exactly what you're trying to do; I'm not sure if this will be helpful, but you can do things like var connect = require('express/connect') as well. Basically you can pass an installed local module, and then create paths off of it as well.