ShellJS Node CLI Extension (UdeS version)

An extension for ShellJS that makes it easy to find and execute Node.js
CLIs.

The difference between the original package and this version is that
the module will also searches inside the node_modules of your CLI.

So, this module will searches as the following way:
- node_modules of the project where your CLI is installed or where
you actually execute a command of your CLI;
- global node_modules;
- node_modules of your CLI if it's installed globally.

The Problem

ShellJS is a fantastic tool for interacting with
the shell environment in a cross-platform way. It allows you to easily
write scripts that would otherwise be written in bash without worrying
about compatibility.

The only problem is that it's a real pain to execute Node binaries that
are installed locally. Most end up manually looking into the node_modules
directory to find the binary file to execute directly with Node, especially
when working on Windows, where the files in node_modules/.bin tend not to
work from scripting environments like make and ShellJS. Consequently, you end
up seeing a lot of this:

``javascript
import shell from 'shelljs'

const ESLINT = 'node_modules/eslint/bin/eslint.js'

shell.exec(node ${ESLINT} myfile.js)
`

The Solution

Since Node binaries are specified in their package.json files, it's
actually pretty easy to look up the location of the runtime file and
get the path. That's where the ShellJS Node CLI extension comes in:

`javascript
import ShellJSNodeCLI from '@udes/shelljs-nodecli'

ShellJSNodeCLI.exec('eslint myfile.js')
`

The nodeCLI utility has its own exec() that is specifically for use
when executing Node CLIs. It searches through the working directory's
node_modules directory to find a locally installed utility. If it's
not found there, then it searches globally. Finally, it will searches
inside the node_modules of your CLI. If it's still not found, then
an error is thrown.

You can pass in as many string arguments as you'd like, and they will
automatically be concatenated together with a space in between, such as:

`javascript
import ShellJSNodeCLI from '@udes/shelljs-nodecli'

ShellJSNodeCLI.exec("eslint -f compact myfile.js");
`

This ends up creating the following string:

`bash
eslint -f compact myfile.js
`

This frees you from needing to do tedious string concatenation to
execute the command.

The exec() method otherwise behaves exactly the same as the default
ShellJS exec() method, meaning you can use the same options and
callback arguments, such as:

`javascript
import ShellJSNodeCLI from '@udes/shelljs-nodecli'

const version = ShellJSNodeCLI.exec('eslint -v', {silent:true}).output;

const child = ShellJSNodeCLI.exec('some_long_running_process', {async:true})
child.stdout.on('data', (data) => {
/ ... do something with data ... /
})

ShellJSNodeCLI.exec('some_long_running_process', (code, output) => {
console.log('Exit code:', code)
console.log('Program output:', output)
})
``

Copyright

- Copyright 2014 Nicholas C. Zakas. All rights reserved.
- Copyright 2017 Université de Sherbrooke. All rights reserved.

License

MIT License