require-dir-all

Yet another Node.js helper to require all files in directory. Useful when needed to require group of files in same directory(-ies) with similar functionality, like routes, controllers, middlewares, models, etc.

Inspired by require-all and require-dir packages. Both of them are good, but the first of them lacks relative paths support (need to use __dirname) and always recursive, while the second one lacks file/dir filtering and for some reason store modules in non-hierarchical structure, taking only one file from several ones with the same name.

Installation

npm install require-dir-all --save

Usage

Basic usage

var modules = require('require-dir-all')('directory_to_require');

Now variable modules will contain exported values from all the modules .js, .json, .coffee in directory accessible by its properties, for example modules.module1 as if they were require'd like:

modules = {
  module1: require('module1')
  module2: require('module2')
}

If you need more than one directory to require, you can provide array of directories:

var modules = require('require-dir-all')(['dir1', dir2]);

Variable modules will be array of objects with module's exports, equivalent to:

modules = [
  { module1: require('module1') },
  { module2: require('module2') }
]

Options

You may provide additional options using second optional parameter:

var modules = require('require-dir-all')(
  'directory_to_require', // relative or absolute directory 
  { // options
    map: function(reqModule) { /* you may postprocess the name of property the module will be stored and exported object */ }
    recursive:    false,                          // recursively go through subdirectories; default value shown
    includeFiles: /^.*\.(js|json|coffee)$/,       // RegExp to select files; default value shown
    excludeDirs:   /^(\.git|\.svn|node_modules)$/  // RegExp to ignore subdirectories; default value shown
  }
);

Options:

• map: function to postprocess each require'd file (see example below); default: null
• recursive - recursively go through subdirectories; default: false
• includeFiles - reg exp to include files, default: /^.*\.(js|json|coffee)$/, which means to require only .js, .json, .coffee files
• excludeDirs - reg exp to exclude subdirectories (when recursive: true ), default: /^(\.(git|svn)|(node_modules))$/, which means to exclude directories .git, .svn, node_modules while going recursively

Tips

Typical task is to run the function for each module required from the directory (like init or shutdown routines). With this module it is needed to reqursively go through all the properties (i.e.module's exports) and run the function for each of them

If you need to wait until the end of initialization of all the modules, using async (assuming each module's initialize method accepts callback as a parameter).

Please, be aware, that the methods below applicable only

Require'd files modules/module1.js and modules/module2.js

var path = require('path'),
  fileExt = path.extname(module.filename),
  fileBase  = path.basename(module.filename, fileExt);

module.exports = {
  initialize: function(cb) {
    console.log('module ' + fileBase + ' initialized');
    return cb(false, 'result from '+fileBase);
  }
};

Require'ing file index.js:

var _ = require('lodash');
var async = require('async');
var modules = require('require-dir-all')('modules');

var initialize = function(callback) {
  var initializers = [];

  _.forOwn(modules, function(module) {
    initializers.push( function(cb) { return module.initialize(cb); } );
  });

  async.parallel(initializers, callback);
};

initialize(function(err, results) {
  console.log('initialize done; results:', results);
});

/*
Output:

module module1 initialized
module module2 initialized
initialize done; results: [ 'result from module1', 'result from module2' ]
*/

If you do not need to wait till the finish of initialization of both modules:

var _ = require('lodash');
var modules = require('require-dir-all')('modules');

module.exports.initialize = function() {
  _.forOwn(modules, function(module) {
//  for (var module in modules) { if (modules.hasOwnProperty(module)) {
      module.initialize(); ;
//  } }
  });
};

See demo/initializers for an example

Simple

If you need to require all the .js, .json, .coffee files in the directory modules, add following line:

var modules = require('require-dir-all')('modules');

or if you like:

var require_dir_all = require('require-dir-all');
var modules = require_dir_all('modules');

Object modules will be populated with properties which names will correspond to module names and values - to exported objects. Traditional equivalent:

modules = {
  module1: require('module1')
  module2: require('module2')
}

By default directories .git, .svn, node_modules are excluded.

Example

Assume you have following structure:

modules/
    module1.js
    module2.js
app.js

File module1.js exports:

module.exports = 'string exported from module 1';

File module2.js exports:

module.exports = 'string exported from module 2';

In app.js:

var modules = require('require-dir-all')('modules');

console.log('modules:', modules);

Result:

modules: { 
  module1: 'string exported from module 1', 
  module2: 'string exported from module 2' 
}

You can find this example in demo/simple/ To run it:

cd demo/simple/
npm install
node app

Recursive

Option recursive: true allows to require recursively the directory and all its subdirectories.

Example

You can find this example in demo/recursive/

Directory structure:

$ ls -R demo/recursive/modules/
demo/recursive/modules/:
dir1  dir.a.b.c  excluded  excluded.2  module1.js  module2.js

demo/recursive/modules/dir1:
dir2  module3.js

demo/recursive/modules/dir1/dir2:
module4.js

demo/recursive/modules/dir.a.b.c:
module5.js

demo/recursive/modules/excluded:
excluded.js

demo/recursive/modules/excluded.2:
excluded.js

File app.js:

'use strict';

var modules = require('require-dir-all')(
  'modules', {
    recursive: true,
    excludeDirs: /^excluded.*$/
  }
);

console.log('modules:', JSON.stringify(modules, null, 2));

Output:

modules: {
  "dir.a.b.c": {
    "module5": "string exported from module 5"
  },
  "dir1": {
    "dir2": {
      "module4": "string exported from module 4"
    },
    "module3": "string exported from module 3"
  },
  "module1": "string exported from module 1",
  "module2": "string exported from module 2"
}

Map

Option map allows to define function to run for each require'd file.

Object properties. These properties may be changed:

• name - module name to be stored in result object
• exports - module's exports value

These properties are read-only:

• path - filepath,
• base - base part of file name,
• ext - file extension

Assume you have following structure:

modules/
  module1
  module2

If each file module1.js, module2.js in modules directory exports a constructor to which the some config parameters are passed like this:

'use strict';

// Object constructor
var Object1 = function(config) {
  this.name = 'Object1';
  this.config = config;
};

// Exporting constructor function
module.exports = Object1;

and the code which require's these files in app_old.js is like following:

// For 
var config1 = { value: 'config1' },
  config2 = 'config2';
  
var module1 = new (require('modules/module1'))(config1),
  module2 = new ()require('module/module2'))(config2);

You may replace this with following code:

// Store config for each module in config object properties
// with property names corresponding to module names
var config = {
  module1: { value: 'config1' },
  module2: { value: 'config2' }
};

// Require all files in modules subdirectory
var modules = require('require-dir-all')(
  'modules', // Directory to require
  {          // Options
    map: function(reqModule) {
      // define function to be post-processed over exported object for each require-d module
      reqModule.exports =
        // create new object with corresponding config passed to constructor
         new reqModule.exports( config[reqModule.name] );
      // Also may change the property name if needed
      // reqModule.name = 'prefix_'+reqModule.name;
    }
  }
);

console.log('modules:', JSON.stringify(modules, null, 2));

Result:

modules: {
  "module1": {
    "name": "Object1",
    "config": {
      "value": "config1"
    }
  },
  "module2": {
    "name": "Object2",
    "config": {
      "value": "config2"
    }
  }
}

You can find this example in demo/map/ To run it:

cd demo/map/
npm install
node app

TODO

• Add support for glob-like definitions?

// from http://stackoverflow.com/a/28976201/2774010
var glob = require( 'glob' )
  , path = require( 'path' );

glob.sync( './routes/**/*.js' ).forEach( function( file ) {
  require( path.resolve( file ) );
});

• Add support for array of dirs as the first parameter

• Restructure README.md to make it more readable (as an example - browserify)

Links to package pages:

github.com npmjs.com travis-ci.org coveralls.io