CODEWITHSUNDEEP
javascriptnode.js
apizzimenti
apizzimenti

Reputation: 467

What's the difference between require.main and module?

I am building a cli with node, and when I had to reference the filepath of the module, I didn't understand how it worked.

From node's docs, it says that require.main === module. What specifically do these mean ?

Upvotes: 1

Views: 3754

Answers (1)

FurkanO
FurkanO

Reputation: 7308

From the doc ;

When a file is run directly from Node.js, require.main is set to its module. That means that you can determine whether a file has been run directly by testing

require.main === module

For a file foo.js, this will be true if run via node foo.js, but false if run by require('./foo').

So lets say you have a file called foo.js and it involves the following code;

console.log(require.main === module);

When you type " node foo.js " from terminal , you will see that it returns true. But let s say you have a second file called foo1.js and you require foo.js in this file as the following ;

var foo = require("./foo");

When you type " node foo1.js " from terminal , you will see that it returns false.

This is what this part of docs is telling.

Upvotes: 15

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