Node's require()
is the de facto javascript dependency statement.
npm
is the de facto javascript module manager.
require brings both of them to the browser.
"Just give me some code that runs"
mkdir app; cd app
echo '{ "name":"app" }' > package.json
sudo npm install require
sudo npm install raphael
curl -O https://raw.github.com/gist/975866/little_server.js
curl -O https://raw.github.com/gist/975868/little_client.js
node little_server.js
Now go to http://localhost:8080
sudo npm install -g require
Start dev server
require serve ./example --port 1234 --host localhost
In your HTML:
<script src="//localhost:1234/require/client"></script>
This is like calling require('client') from inside ./example. Read more on node's require path resolution
(You'll want to do this before you deploy to production)
require compile ./example/client.js > client.min.js
In node:
require('require/server').listen(1234)
or mount it on an http server you're already running
var server = http.createServer(function(req, res) { })
require('require/server').mount(server)
server.listen(8080, 'localhost')
or, as connect middleware
connect.createServer(
connect.static(__dirname + '/example'),
require('require/server').connect()
)
Compile programmatically:
var compiler = require('require/compiler')
console.log(compiler.compile('./example/client.js'))
console.log(compiler.compileCode('require("./example/client")'))
The compiler supports all the options of https://github.com/mishoo/UglifyJS, e.g.
compiler.compile('./example/client.js', { beautify:true, ascii_only:true })