joshbackstein/cs313-node

Multiple Node.js projects in a single Heroku repository

This repository is set up according to this GitHub issue comment.

How to use

To change the project directory for Heroku to use, edit set-project-directory.sh to look like this:

#!/bin/sh

# Set NPM_PREFIX_DIR
export NPM_PREFIX_DIR='your-project-directory-here'

In addition to this, your project directory's package.json file must contain a start script. If you run your project using the command node index.js, your package.json file should look something like this:

{
  ... other stuff ...
  "scripts": {
    "start": "node index.js",
    ... other scripts ...
  },
  ... other stuff ...
}

Example

Let's make a new project named cool-web-app.

First, we need to create and enter the directory for the project. From the root directory of this repository, run the following commands:

$ mkdir cool-web-app
$ cd cool-web-app

Next, we need to initialize the project using npm. This will prompt you for some information, but you can use the default values if you'd like. It will look something like this:

$ npm init
This utility will walk you through creating a package.json file.
It only covers the most common items, and tries to guess sensible defaults.

See `npm help json` for definitive documentation on these fields
and exactly what they do.

Use `npm install <pkg>` afterwards to install a package and
save it as a dependency in the package.json file.

Press ^C at any time to quit.
package name: (cool-web-app)
version: (1.0.0)
description:
entry point: (index.js)
test command:
git repository:
keywords:
author:
license: (ISC)
About to write to /home/your-username/cs313-node-multiple-project-example/cool-web-app/package.json:

{
  "name": "cool-web-app",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "",
  "main": "index.js",
  "scripts": {
    "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
  },
  "author": "",
  "license": "ISC"
}


Is this OK? (yes)

Now that we've used npm to create a default package.json file for us, we'll need to add a start script to it:

"start": "node index.js"

To do this, add the start script to the scripts section in your project's package.json file like this:

{
  "name": "cool-web-app",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "",
  "main": "index.js",
  "scripts": {
    "start": "node index.js",
    "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
  },
  "author": "",
  "license": "ISC"
}

Finally, you'll need to go back to the root directory of this repository and edit your set-project-directory.sh file to look like this:

#!/bin/sh

# Set NPM_PREFIX_DIR
export NPM_PREFIX_DIR='cool-web-app'

That's it! You can now create and edit your project's index.js file to start working on your project.