What does it do?

It autoreloads Node.JS if any file changes.

Unlike most other utilites of this kind, it is based on inotify. So it hooks on new files automatically.

$ npm install dev -g

$ node-dev app.js

Starting: app.js
> server is listening on http://127.0.0.1:8080</pre>

node-dev will rerun app.js whenever one of the watched files is changed.

No more switching to the terminal to rerun your code. Just change a file and your code will be rerun.

This is especially nice for webservers, as you can skip the terminal and alt-tab to the browser to see your updated code happily running.

A number of additional options make the module really flexible and extendible.

Install

npm install dev -g

Global installation to have node-dev in path.

Advanced usage

The node-dev is a tiny file which basically contains:

var manager = require("dev")(options);
manager.start();

The options are:

Running

• run: the js file to run, e.g ./app.js, the only required option.

Watch/Ignore

• watchDir: the folder to watch, default: .
• ignoredPaths [ paths ]: array of ignored paths, which are not watched, members can be:
  • string, matched exactly against path, like ./public,
  • RegExp, like extension check: \.gif$
  • function(path), which takes the path and returns true if it should be ignored

Logging

• debug: adds additional output about watches and changes, default: false
• logger: custom logger object, must have error(...) and debug(...) methods, delegates to console.log by default. Can use any other logger.

Info

• onRunOutput: callback function(output), called for stdout data from the running process
• onRunError: callback function(output), called for stderr data from the running process

You can use these to send error notifications and integrate with your development environment if you wish.

Limits

There are limits on the number of watched files in inotify. You may need to raise them, or, much better, make sure that you only watch your modules, not all 3rd-party npm stuff.

TODO

Tell me which features you miss?