eush77 / requireg

Resolve and require global modules in node.js like a boss

requireg

Require and resolve global modules in node/io.js like a boss

Differences with require()

requireg tries to find modules in global locations which are not natively supported by the node.js module resolve algorithm.

Supported locations:

• $HOME/node_modules (instead of $HOME/.node_modules)
• $HOME/node_libraries (instead of $HOME/.node_libraries)
• $HOME/node_packages (specific of requireg)
• $PREFIX/lib/node_modules (instead of $PREFIX/lib/node)
• $NODE_MODULES (use the specific modules path environment variable)

Resolution priority

1. Resolve via native require()
2. User home directory ($HOME or %USERPROFILE%)
3. Node installation path
4. $NODE_MODULES (can have different multiple paths, semicolon separated)
5. Common operative system installation paths

Installation

$ npm install requireg --save[-dev]

Usage

Load global modules

var requireg = require('requireg')
// require a globally installed package
var npm = requireg('npm')

Resolve module path

var modulePath = requireg.resolve('npm')
// returns '/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/npm.js'

Globalize it

require('requireg').globalize()

Now it is globally available from any source file

var globalModule = requireg('npm')

Module not found

requireg maintains the same behavior as the native require(). It will throw an Error exception if the module was not found

Considerations

• Require global modules in node.js are considered anti-pattern. Note that you can experiment unreliability or inconsistency across different environments. I hope you know exactly what you do with requireg
• Only node packages installed with NPM are supported (which means only standardized NPM paths are supported)

Wish list

• Custom environment variable with custom path to resolve global modules
• Possible configuration object (force to use only global modules...)

License

Released under MIT license