0

This is not a duplicate.

Answers in the below do not work or are irrelevant:

NodeJS require a global module/package

This link to the official documentation also does not solve the problem.

https://nodejs.org/api/modules.html#modules_loading_from_the_global_folders

Problem:

I use node.js not only for actual backend projects and frontend packing, but I also have various utilities scaattered around my file system to do some trivial (and sometimes not so trivial) stuff, like updating prompt, showing help, checking runnning processes, system status, listing particular files, automating my daily routine tasks, etc. Fo such scripts I need to require some globally available js files that I want to keep somewhere in a file system. Right now my only option is to use require(process.HOME + '/js/somefile') syntax.

I tried putting scripts in: 

$HOME/node_modules
$HOME/node_libraries
$HOME/.node_modules
$HOME/.node_libraries

Also tried to export NODE_PATH variable.

Why not npm publish? I have literally hundreds of node.js based CLI utilities. And dozens of shared JavaScript. Publishing and reinstalling globally works but is cumbersome, I tried.

So what is a solution?

What I need is simply have a lib.js in $HOME/js/lib.js which I could require from everywhere on my system by just typing require('lib'). Note that the caller program can also be anywhere on the filesystem.

UPDATE

the small script:

console.log(process.env[ 'NODE_PATH' ])
require('lib')

Will print:

/home/me/js:/home/me/soft/node/node-v6.1.0-linux-x64/lib/node_modules/
internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:583
    throw err;
    ^

Error: Cannot find module 'lib'
    at Function.Module._resolveFilename (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:581:15)
    at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:507:25)
    at Module.require (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:637:17)
    at require (internal/modules/cjs/helpers.js:20:18)
    at Object.<anonymous> (/home/me/test.js:2:1)
    at Module._compile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:689:30)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:700:10)
    at Module.load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:599:32)
    at tryModuleLoad (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:538:12)
    at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:530:3)

Of course the file is in ~/js:

$ pwd
/home/me
$ cat ~/js/lib.js 
console.log('it loaded')
$ node -v
v10.7.0
$ lsb_release -a
No LSB modules are available.
Distributor ID: Ubuntu
Description:    Ubuntu 18.04.1 LTS
Release:        18.04
Codename:       bionic
exebook
  • 32,014
  • 33
  • 141
  • 226
  • If your `lib.js` module in is `$HOME/js` then running `export NODE_PATH=$HOME/js` should have caused `require('lib')` to work for any later invocations of `node` in that shell. (This assumes that you're using a shell based on `sh`. If your shell is some variant of `csh` then do `setenv NODE_PATH $HOME/js` instead.) If it didn't work, then run `node` in the shell and tell us what `process.env[ 'NODE_PATH' ]` contains. – ottomeister Mar 06 '19 at 07:39
  • @ottomeister `console.log(process.env[ 'NODE_PATH' ])`: gives `/home/me/js:/home/me/soft/node/node-v6.1.0-linux-x64/lib/node_modules/` – exebook Mar 06 '19 at 10:04

1 Answers1

0

You can create a git repo to keep your utilities and then include it in your package.json like so (using github address as an example)

"dependencies": {
  "lib": "git+ssh://git@github.com:exebook/my-lib.git"
}

After you call npm install you can require it like any other package: require('lib'). The only caveat is that if you update your repo, npm install won't pull the new changes - you need to run npm update

jakedipity
  • 890
  • 8
  • 19