grunt-link
Grunt task to handle the linking of local dependencies.
##Use Case
This task is useful if you have a large app and instead of requiring directories directly that should be their own module you can now develop your modules independently and link them using this task.
This allows you to develop as if it were its own module and if you ever decide to publish your modules you just have to change your package.json
and your code does not have to change.
This also allows you develop your modules in isolation with their own respective dependencies and tests.
For example assume you have an app of the following structure.
my-node-app
-models
-package.json
-logger
-package.json
-config
-package.json
-routes
-package.json
-webapp
-package.json
You could develop each module in isolation and link them.
Getting Started
Install this grunt plugin next to your project's grunt.js gruntfile with: npm install grunt-link
Then add this line to your project's grunt.js
gruntfile:
grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-link');
Documentation
In each modules package.json
add a linkDependencies
array which is an array of local modules that need to be linked.
{
"name": "my-module",
"version" : "0.0.1",
"linkDependencies": [
"module-a",
"module-b",
"module-c"
]
}
To run from the command line you can run grunt link
which will link your modules.
###Cyclic Dependencies
When running grunt link will determine the link order of your modules, if it detects cyclic dependencies while determining the link order then it will produce an error.
To prevent the warning for a single module you can add !
to the beginning of the dependency name in the linkDependencies
array.
{
"name": "my-module",
"version" : "0.0.1",
"linkDependencies": [
"!module-a",
"module-b",
"module-c"
]
}
Note you will not be able to directly require the module you will have to require lazily.
ignoreCyclic
default false
To prevent this default behavior you can add the following to your grunt.js
file.
grunt.initConfig({
link : {
ignoreCyclic : true
}
});
dir
By default grunt-link
will look for modules in the same directory as your grunt.js
file if you wish to link modules in another directory you can add the following to your grunt.js
file.
grunt.initConfig({
link : {
dir : "location/of/your/modules"
}
});
Note dir
is relative to to grunt.js file.
install
default true
grunt-link
will run npm install
on each linked module if you wish to just link your modules you can set this option to false.
grunt.initConfig({
link : {
install : false
}
});
clean
default true
grunt-link
will by default remove the node_modules directory to prevent this set clean
to false.
grunt.initConfig({
link : {
clean : false
}
});
Contributing
In lieu of a formal styleguide, take care to maintain the existing coding style. Add unit tests for any new or changed functionality. Lint and test your code using grunt.
Release History
2014-07-16 v0.2.2
- Changed to use
npm link
when initially linking modules
2014-07-16 v0.2.1
- Updated
package.json
for correct repo
2014-07-16 v0.2.0
- Using symlinks instead of
npm link
to improve performance. - Improved logging.
2012-12-30 v0.0.1 Initial release.
License
Copyright (c) 2012 Doug Martin
Licensed under the MIT license.