require-directory

Recursively iterates over specified directory, require()'ing each file, and returning a nested hash structure containing those modules.

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How To Use

Installation (via npm)

$ npm install require-directory

Usage

A common pattern in node.js is to include an index file which creates a hash of the files in its current directory. Given a directory structure like so:

• app.js
• routes/
  • index.js
  • home.js
  • auth/
  • login.js
  • logout.js
  • register.js

routes/index.js uses require-directory to build the hash (rather than doing so manually) like so:

var requireDirectory = require('require-directory');
module.exports = requireDirectory(module);

app.js references routes/index.js like any other module, but it now has a hash/tree of the exports from the ./routes/ directory:

var routes = require('./routes');

// snip

app.get('/', routes.home);
app.get('/register', routes.auth.register);
app.get('/login', routes.auth.login);
app.get('/logout', routes.auth.logout);

The routes variable above is the equivalent of this:

var routes = {
  home: require('routes/home.js'),
  auth: {
    login: require('routes/auth/login.js'),
    logout: require('routes/auth/logout.js'),
    register: require('routes/auth/register.js')
  }
};

Note that routes.index will be undefined as you would hope.

Specifying Another Directory

You can specify which directory you want to build a tree of (if it isn't the current directory for whatever reason) by passing it as the second parameter. Not specifying the path (requireDirectory(module)) is the equivelant of requireDirectory(module, __dirname):

var requireDirectory = require('require-directory');
module.exports = requireDirectory(module, './some/subdirectory');

For example, in the example in the Usage section we could have avoided creating routes/index.js and instead changed the first lines of app.js to:

var requireDirectory = require('require-directory');
var routes = requireDirectory(module, './routes');

Options

You can pass an options hash to require-directory as the 2nd parameter (or 3rd if you're passing the path to another directory as the 2nd parameter already). Here are the available options:

Whitelisting

Whitelisting (either via RegExp or function) allows you to specify that only certain files be loaded.

var requireDirectory = require('require-directory'),
  whitelist = /onlyinclude.js$/,
  hash = requireDirectory(module, {include: whitelist});

var requireDirectory = require('require-directory'),
  check = function(path){
    if(/onlyinclude.js$/.test(path)){
      return true; // don't include
    }else{
      return false; // go ahead and include
    }
  },
  hash = requireDirectory(module, {include: check});

Blacklisting

Blacklisting (either via RegExp or function) allows you to specify that all but certain files should be loaded.

var requireDirectory = require('require-directory'),
  blacklist = /dontinclude\.js$/,
  hash = requireDirectory(module, {exclude: blacklist});

var requireDirectory = require('require-directory'),
  check = function(path){
    if(/dontinclude\.js$/.test(path)){
      return false; // don't include
    }else{
      return true; // go ahead and include
    }
  },
  hash = requireDirectory(module, {exclude: check});

Visiting Objects As They're Loaded

require-directory takes a function as the visit option that will be called for each module that is added to module.exports.

var requireDirectory = require('require-directory'),
  visitor = function(obj) {
    console.log(obj); // will be called for every module that is loaded
  },
  hash = requireDirectory(module, {visit: visitor});

The visitor can also transform the objects by returning a value:

var requireDirectory = require('require-directory'),
  visitor = function(obj) {
    return obj(new Date());
  },
  hash = requireDirectory(module, {visit: visitor});

Renaming Keys

var requireDirectory = require('require-directory'),
  renamer = function(name) {
    return name.toUpperCase();
  },
  hash = requireDirectory(module, {rename: renamer});

No Recursion

var requireDirectory = require('require-directory'),
  hash = requireDirectory(module, {recurse: false});

Run Unit Tests

$ npm run lint
$ npm test

License

MIT License

Author

Troy Goode (troygoode@gmail.com)