CODEWITHSUNDEEP
node.jscoffeescript
Ofri
Ofri

Reputation: 474

How does the coffee-script module work?

Out of curiosity how does the coffee-script module handle require 'xxx'? It must be compiling the required file before node can load it... Does it have a specific handling for the 'require' function?

Thanks.

Upvotes: 1

Views: 196

Answers (2)

hpaulj
hpaulj

Reputation: 231738

So if I have a coffee file with the line

x = require './ls.coffee'

and run it directly with coffee, e.g. coffee foo.coffee, ls.coffee is loaded with the coffee extension (compiled and run).

But if I compile that script coffee -c foo.coffee, and run it with node, node foo.js, I get an error. Node no longer has the require extension set, and all it sees is the Coffeescript code.

Upvotes: 0

Alex Wayne
Alex Wayne

Reputation: 187292

It looks like that's all handled right here:

https://github.com/jashkenas/coffee-script/blob/master/src/extensions.coffee

Which takes advantage of node's ability to register extensions that runs a callback when loaded. This is now deprecated, it seems, but the functionality is still present and working.

It does other stuff too, including some gnarly monkeypatching, but here's the most relevant snippet:

# Load and run a CoffeeScript file for Node, stripping any `BOM`s.
loadFile = (module, filename) ->
  answer = CoffeeScript._compileFile filename, false
  module._compile answer, filename

# If the installed version of Node supports `require.extensions`, register
# CoffeeScript as an extension.
if require.extensions
  for ext in CoffeeScript.FILE_EXTENSIONS
    require.extensions[ext] = loadFile

Upvotes: 1

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