In my project, I use a few RequireJS modules. I have used the Require JS optimizer (r.js)to package them further into various modules. So, if we have require modules like a.js, b.js, c.js and d.js after packaging we get this :
abc.js ( which is a combination of a.js and b.js)
a.js,
b.js
def.js ( which is a combination of c.js and d.js)
c.js,
d.js
We have made these modules abc.js and def.js available over CDN and end users use it. Is there a way to find out who is using a.js and who is using b.js? I mean, can we detect who downloaded which module in their application. This becomes a little tricky because sometimes it will be loaded from browser cache also. At least can we do it at the level of abc.js and def.js?
The problem is if you're distributing both modules in the same file then you need some way to track the usage of each module (right?) and to complicate thing further, browsers cache static files, other users could download your modules and self host, etc etc.
I think this is a slightly offside solution but it should work. You could grab a JavaScript analytics library like Segment.IO:
https://segment.com
and in your definition for module A (inside it's "factory" or definition block) you could track it's usage:
analytics.track('module A was required');
likewise in module B's definition:
analytics.track('module B was required');
and that way even though they're defined in the same file and could be cached, only when the user requires the individual module do you fire the tracking call, so you'll know exactly when a certain module of yours is used.
Related
I have quite an annoying, but probably simple, problem that I just cannot figure out.
In a TypeScript file I have defined the following line:
import test1 = require('domReady');
This "domReady" module is defined in a main.js file that is loaded as the entry point for RequireJS. The definition is as followed:
require.config({
paths: {
'domReady': '../domReady',
}
However... in my TypeScript file I simply get a "cannot find module 'domReady'" and it is driving me insane, as I have double checked the pathing to the file and it is indeed in the correct location with the correct name. Additionally, I am fairly certain that the domReady.js file IS AMD compatible, so it should define an external module just fine! (domReady GitHub Link).
I seriously can't understand why the module can't be found in the import statement. Does anyone have any ideas to what the problem may be?
EDIT 1
The directory structure is as follows:
.
+--App
| +--main.js
| +--dashboard.js
+--domReady.js
The import statement takes place in the "dashboard.js" file, and the config for require.js happens in "main.js".
In order for TypeScript to find a module, you must actually provide module information to TypeScript.
TypeScript doesn’t yet support AMD-style paths configuration, it doesn’t ever use calls within your JavaScript code (like require.config()) to configure itself, and it won’t treat JavaScript files on disk as modules when compiling. So right now, you aren’t doing anything to actually give the compiler the information it needs to successfully process the import statement.
For your code to compile without error, you have to explicitly declare an ambient declaration for the module you’re importing within the compiler, in a separate d.ts file:
// in domReady.d.ts
declare module 'domReady' {
function domReady(callback: () => any): void;
export = domReady;
}
Then, include this d.ts in the list of files you pass to the compiler:
tsc domReady.d.ts App/main.ts App/dashboard.ts
Any other third party JavaScript code that you import also needs ambient declarations to compile successfully; DefinitelyTyped provides d.ts files for many of these.
I've had problems before when the path key and the directory name or file name are the same (in your case, domReady). Might not work, but worth giving it a quick try, i.e.
either
'domReadyModule': '../domReady',
require('domReadyModule')
or rename domReady.js to e.g. domReady-1.0.js and use
'domReady': '../domReady-1.0',
require('domReady')
If that doesn't work, I'd check the relative directories between main.js and the file that is doing the require, or else try importing another library in the same fashion, or finally compare with other libraries that you are importing successfully.
Good luck, hope you resolve the problem!
This is a problem I faced more than one. Here is an example file structure:
app.js
folder
-- index.js
-- module1.js
-- module2.js
From app.js, the entry point of my application, I require folder/index.js. This file itself is just a loader who requires all the other files in the directory. module1.js and module2.js both define some methods I want to use eventually. They are never directly required by app.js since index.js takes care of that and adds common helper utilities and applies some transformations to these modules.
All works well if I then use some methods defined in those files from app.js after I required them. But the problem comes when a method defined in module2.js wants to use a method defined in method1.js (or vice-versa). Sometimes it will work, sometimes not (in folders with multiple files I didn't get to find out when precisely it works and when it doesn't yet).
If, from module2.js I require ./index.js and then use methods in it defined by module1.js, I sometimes get Cannot read property 'myMethod' of undefined. I assume it has to do with the order the modules are required by index.js, but I can't seem to find a solution to this common problem (other than duplicating code or not using methods of these other modules).
Is there a common solution to this problem? I tried doing something like this :
var modules = require(./index.js);
exports.myMethod = function() {
if(!modules.module1 || !modules.module1.myOtherMethod) {
modules = require('./index.js');
}
modules.module1.myOtherMethod();
};
But it doesn't to do anything, modules.module1 is still undefined.
It just sounds like module should require module2. That's the solution to module1 needing to call methods in module2.
If you're worried about many calls to require, don't. That's standard practice in every programming language I've used (in particular look at the import statements in any Java program. Java is verbose, I know, but this is correct practice.)
It's definitely bad practice to look at code in one module and have no idea where anything comes from, because the require statements are missing.
You have a circular dependency problem. Try moving some of the common functions to a third file and have module1 and module2 require it, or make sure that one of them requires the other in one way only.
Never ever require a file that requires the current file back.
If I have a node.js application that has hundreds of files that reference a module (say underscore) and I want to replace that module with another (say lodash) then the obvious way to do this substitution would be a global name replace and switch out the modules in the package.json file.
Is there anyway to just change the module that a name refers to so that when node.js sees require('moduleA') it actually loads 'moduleB' instead? Now I know that this would cause naming hell because anyone working on the project would see require('moduleA') and wouldn't know that the real module being loaded was 'moduleB' so ultimately you'd probably want to go with the first solution. The use case that I'm thinking of is if you want to try a few alternatives for API compatible modules to measure your application's performance (for example) with each module.
If this is an on-going thing and you want to maintain the ability to programmatically switch between the options often, such as in tests:
Instead of using require("underscore"); throughout your codebase, require a local file instead like require("./lib/underscore");, and have that file conditionally re-export underscore or a different library:
if (global.USE_LODASH) {
module.exports = require("lodash");
} else {
module.exports = require("underscore");
}
If this is a one-off thing to try out an alternative library before making the decision to switch, and you want to do this test quickly first without find-and-replacing in all of your files:
Go inside your node_modules folder, delete or rename the underscore folder, and make a symlink named underscore to the replacement module's folder. I don't recommend this as a long-term solution: running npm install again will likely undo this hack, and most projects choose to avoid checking the node_modules folder into their source repository.
Try to use mock-require module.
So, I have an app that is using requireJS. Quite happily. For the most part.
This app makes use of Socket.IO. Socket.IO is being provided by nodejs, and does not run on the same port as the main webserver.
To deal with this, in our main js file, we do something like this:
var hostname = window.location.hostname;
var socketIoPath = "http://" + hostname + ":3000/socket.io/socket.io";
requirejs.config({
baseUrl: "/",
paths: {
app : "scripts/appapp",
"socket.io" : socketIoPath
}
});
More complicated than this, but you get the gist.
Now, in interactive mode, this works swimingly.
The ugliness starts when we try to use r.js to compile this (technically we're using grunt to run r.js, but that's besides the point).
In the config for r.js, we set an empty path for socket.io (to avoid it failing to pull in), and we set our main file as the mainConfigFile.
The compiler yells about this, saying:
Running "requirejs:dist" (requirejs) task
>> Error: Error: The config in mainConfigFile /…/client.js cannot be used because it cannot be evaluated correctly while running in the optimizer. Try only using a config that is also valid JSON, or do not use mainConfigFile and instead copy the config values needed into a build file or command line arguments given to the optimizer.
>> at Function.build.createConfig (/…/r.js:23636:23)
Now, near as I can figure, this is due to the fact that I'm using a variable to set the path for "socket.io". If i take this out, require runs great, but i can't run the raw from a server. If I leave it is, my debug server is happy, but the build breaks.
Is there a way that I can lazily assign the path of "socket.io" at runtime so that it doesn't have to go into the requirejs.config() methos at that point?
Edit: Did some extensive research on this. Here are the results.
Loading from CDN with RequireJS is possible with a build. However, if you're using the smaller Almond loader, it's not possible.
This leaves you with two options:
Use almond along with a local copy of the file in your build.
Use the full require.js loader and try to use a CDN.
Use a <script> tag just for that resource.
I say try for #2 because there are some caveats. You'll need to include require.js in your HTML with the data-main attribute for your built file. But if you do this, require and define will be global functions, allowing users to require any of your internal modules and mess around with them. If you're okay with this, you'll need to follow the "empty: scheme" in your build config (but not in your main config).
But the fact remains that you now have another HTTP request. If you only want one built file, which includes the require.js loader, you'll need to optimize for only one file.
Now, if you want to avoid users being able to require your modules, you'll have to do something like wrap:true in your build. But as far as I can tell, once your module comes down from CDN, if it's AMD, it's going to look for a global define function to register itself with, and that won't exist because it's now wrapped in a closure.
The lesson I took away from all this: inline your resources to your build. It makes sense. You reduce HTTP requests, minify it all and get gzip compression. You don't expose your modules to the world and everything is a lot simpler. If you cache your resources properly you won't even need to worry about it.
But since new versions of socket.io don't like AMD, here's how I did it. Make sure to include the socket.io <script> tag before requirejs. Then create a requirejs module named socket.io with the following contents:
define([], function () {
var io = window.io;
window.io = null;
return io;
});
Set the path like so: 'socket.io': 'core/socket.io' or wherever you want.
And require it as normal! The build works fine this way.
Original answer
Is it possible that you could make use of the path config fallbacks specified in the RequireJS API? Maybe you could save the file locally as a fallback so your build will work.
The socket.io GitHub repository specifies that you can serve the client with the files in the socket.io-client package's dist/ directory.
I'm working on a userscript - in particular this userscript - which has been designed to encapsulate functionality in modules. In order to be able to do some automated testing I would like to split the modules into their own files and use node.js's module exporting and require functions to combine into one file for use in Greasemonkey or simple browser extensions.
My first thought was to just copy the modules into their own files as such
module.js
var exportedModule = (function (){
var Module = {
// public functions and members
};
//private functions and members
return Module;
}());
module.exports = exports = exportedModule;
And then have a central file that requires each of these modules, perhaps compiling them with something like Browserify.
script.js
var importedModule = require(./module);
importedModule.init();
Is this possible?
It seems to me that you would be better off using Requirejs, which uses AMD style modules and is inherently more browser friendly. Node commonjs-style modules are synchronous and do not fit the browser model very well.
Of course, using requirejs will change your scripts a bit.
It's possible, and Browserify makes it easy:
browserify src/my.user.js -o dist/my.user.js
The metadata in the source file may get moved, but it's still parsed correctly (by Greasemonkey at least).
For a more complex example which compiles various assets, including CSS and images, see here.