process.binding is not supported, browserify - javascript

In a project where I am using Gulp and Browserify, anytime I try to require dust library (dustjs) in my script, Browserify throws an error: "process.binding is not supported".
Note: Browserify throws the same error whether dust is Installed from npm or called in and added via 'browserify-shim' in package.json.
Thanks for your help.

Browserify only shims certain common Node-specific properties. As said in the process documentation:
This module mostly exists to provide the nextTick functionality and nothing more. We keep this module lean because it will often be included by default by tools like browserify when it detects a module has used the process global.
It also defines a few other properties to prevent undefined errors from being thrown. binding and chdir intentionally throw errors, however.

Related

Uncaught ReferenceError: module is not defined at guacamole-common.min.js

We are using guacamole-common-js in one of our projects and using guacamole-common.min.js in the script results in a module not found error:
<script type="text/javascript" src="guacamole-common.min.js"></script>
I am using guacamole-common.js: 1.4.0-a
At first, I thought this might be related to guacamole-common.js version but I tried downgrading its version but still facing the same error.
The use of module.exports indicates that the file is a CommonJS module. This is the default module format of Node.js and is not supported by browsers.
Either:
You have a module designed for Node.js and not web browsers. There might be a browser targetted version available.
You have a module designed for use with a module bundling tool (such as Webpack or Parcel) and should use one of those to build your browser-side JS application.
Try carefully reading the documentation from wherever you downloaded the JS file from.

Error loading in audiosprite - Module not found: 'child_process'

I'm trying to load in audiosprite in my React app which is running on a Webpack server and I'm getting the following error:
Module not found: 'child_process' in
C:\Users\BenLi\Desktop\development
projects\app\node_modules\audiosprite
Have no idea what this could be or why it's occurring with this module as apparently, Webpack should not throw child_process errors as it comes with it.
I'm including it in my app like so:
import audiosprite from 'audiosprite';
The error in coming from here in the file:
function spawn(name, opt) {
opts.logger.debug('Spawn', { cmd: [name].concat(opt).join(' ') })
return require('child_process').spawn(name, opt)
}
How do I fix this error?
TL;DR
There is no way around this unless you (maybe) switch to Browserify (need to test this myself) which offers a browserify-fs module. Since the browser has no access to the file system or child processes anyways, the module audiosprite can't be used in this usecase. The browser cannot do what it's incapable of.
Explanation
This is because of Webpack. Webpack, by default, is designed to compile code to run in a web-browser environment. The whole reason it exists is to bundle everything up to be browser-friendly (hence the name "web pack").
Node offers some built-in modules such as child_process, path, os, fs, etc. that only exist in a Node environment. When Webpack comes along and tries to bundle code for the browser, the browser does not have access to these modules. Thus, when modules such as audiosprite use child_process, Webpack bundles them for the web by default and you no longer have access to these modules. This explains why the error reports that the "module is not found".
"Solutions"
A "fix" is to specify your Webpack configuration to compile for usage in a Node-like environment, where you do have access to these built-in modules. That way, Webpack won't mess with the built-in modules and child_process can be used. You can do this by specifying the target option. From the Webpack Configuration documentation:
target
"web" Compile for usage in a browser-like environment (default)
"node" Compile for usage in a node.js-like environment (use require to load chunks)
(documentation cut for brevity)
But there's a consequence. Because of you setting your target as a Node environment, require will not work when using the browser as there is no require in the browser environment.
What you can do is keep the target environment the same ("web" by default) and try to mock the module for what you need. With the node option:
node
Include polyfills or mocks for various node stuff:
<node buildin>: true, "mock", "empty" or false
And apply it to the Webpack configuration file:
node: {
fs: "mock"
}
But this will error out telling you:
Error: No browser version for node.js core module 'fs' available
So this is just by design. There is nothing you can do because bundling for the browser environment will inevitably forbid you from accessing the file system because it can't. You can't provide a browser mock for a module which does things that are impossible in the browser. The same goes for child_process and others.
Edit: I've been looking for some alternatives, and Browserify may or may not work. They do offer a browserify-fs module as a replacement to Node's fs. I have yet to test this so I'm not sure if it could be useful but it looks better than what Webpack does now.
I guess you have to let NPM install the dependency
just
npm install --save autiosprite

require() in Browserify and Gulp

My understanding the purpose of using Browserify is allow you to use require('modules') in the browser by bundling up all of your dependencies.
In Gulp, you can also use require('modules') - so how is that different from Browserify? for example:
var browserify = require('browserify');
var gulp = require('gulp');
require() is Node's way of loading/importing modules. When you run a Gulp task, it is being run by the Node runtime on your computer, so require() is "natively" supported.
Browserify came later, and was inspired by this behaviour. As it says on Browserify's website:
Browsers don't have the require method defined, but Node.js does. With Browserify you can write code that uses require in the same way that you would use it in Node.
In other words, when your JavaScript runs in a browser, there's no Node to be found, so you can't use require(). Browsers will complain that there's no such method. Browserify's solution is to let you write code with modules and require(), but with an extra compilation step before it ever gets to the browser so that require() works like it does in Node.
The "extra compilation step" involves working out what modules depend on others, and bundling your code in a way that facilitates certain modules to load other modules (with require()) when they need to. Browserify then has its own require() method that it makes available to browsers within your bundle, providing essentially the same functionality as Node's require().
This is a good article that explains how Browserify works.
So in some ways, to answer your question, there isn't that much difference that you need to worry about. The main practical difference is that Browserify needs an explicit compilation/build step to generate your output bundle whereas you don't need to think about that when running code with Node (and therefore Gulp).

Initializing node.js environment through C++ application

Just want to know is it possible to initialize/start node.js from C++ application. Root of this question is that I am having a C++ console application, which launches an javascript application which does require('os').Now It is failing as I suppose node.js is missing or not initialized as I am getting Uncaught ReferenceError: require is not defined
Edit 1:
I tried browserify and it resolved the require() issue. Now problem is that I am not able to use any of the methods exposed by the required module.
I am getting "undefined is not a function" error.
Since require is not defined it seems like your JavaScript engine is not supporting the CommonJS specification. You cannot run node modules without CommonJS support.
Generally it's hard to run node modules anywhere but in node, because of the node internals. There exists software to transform node modules and scripts to other platforms like webpack and browserify. Maybe those will create JavaScript that you can use in your project.

Using module "child_process" without Webpack

I'm using Webpack to bundle dependencies, one of which is the emailing service postmark. This service depends upon something called child_process that apparently ships with node.
The problem is, when I attempt to run webpack to bundle my app, it complains:
Module not found: Error: Cannot resolve module 'child_process' in ...
Most of the answers online say that, in response to this error, I should add the line:
node: {
child_process: 'empty'
}
to my webpack config. But this makes no sense, because then webpack just doesn't try to look for child_process, and consequently, when I run my app, I get the following error:
Uncaught TypeError: exec is not a function
which is an error from postmark (the service that relies upon child_process) complaining that the exec function within the child_process module doesn't exist.
Thus, I'm wondering how I can include the child_process module in my build without webpack complaining?
Front-end developer of Postmark here.
It looks like you're trying to bundle postmark.js into your client-side JavaScript but https://github.com/wildbit/postmark.js is a Node.js library. This means it will not run in the browser and requires a running Node.js server.
The main reason for not supporting browser environment is security. As you can see in this example:
var postmark = require("postmark");
var client = new postmark.Client("<server key>");
it requires you to insert the auth token. Bundling this with your client-side JS would expose it and allow everyone access your postmark account API.
Hope this clarifies it.

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