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Conifer

A multi-format, file-based configuration library for Node. It streamlines reading and parsing configurations from JSON, CSON and YAML files, with support for adding your own file-type handlers.

Current Stable Version: 1.0.0
Automated Build Status:

Installing

Install Conifer through npm. Either with the command:

npm install conifer

or by adding conifer to the dependencies in your project package.json.

Basic Usage

You can use Conifer with JavaScript or CoffeeScript:

var conifer = require('conifer');

conifer = require 'conifer'

In the examples below, it's assumed that you've required Conifer as above.

---

conifer.parse

This function parses a config file asynchronously. It accepts two arguments – a file path and a callback function. The file path must be an unempty string and the callback should accept two arguments itself: an error object and the parsed config.

conifer.parse('example.json', function (err, config) {
    if (err !== null) {
        throw err;
    }
    // do something with `config`
});

In the callback, err will be null on success, or an Error object on failure. config will be either an object containing your configurations on success or null.

---

conifer.parseSync

This function parses a config file synchronously. It accepts a single argument – a file path. The file path must be an unempty string. This function returns an object containing your configurations on success, and throws if parsing fails.

config = conifer.parseSync('example.json');

Configuration Importing

Your config files are able to import other configurations as properties, or by merging them into the current object. This allows for a single entry-point for your configuration, as well as a more managable and reusable set of config files.

Examples below are mostly in JSON but this will work for all supported file types, as well as allowing for cross-file-type importing.

Import Properties

Import properties allow you to import the contents of another config file into a property. They work on a property whose (string) value begins with <<. So if we have the following files:

config/main.json:

{
    "name": "Hello World",
    "routes": "<< ./routes.json"
}

config/routes.json:

{
    "/": "controller/index",
    "/about": "controller/about",
}

Parsing config/main.json will result in the following structure:

{
    "name": "Hello World",
    "routes": {
        "/": "controller/index",
        "/about": "controller/about",
    }
}

Import Merges

Import merges allow you to merge the contents of another config file into the current object. Merges are indicated by the << property of an object, which should be set to an array of file names. If we have the following files:

config/main.json:

{
    "name": "Hello World",
    "outputErrors": true,
    "<<": [
        "./production.json"
    ]
}

config/production.json:

{
    "outputErrors": false,
    "logErrors": true
}

Parsing config/main.json will result in the following structure:

{
    "name": "Hello World",
    "outputErrors": false,
    "logErrors": true
}

Extending With File Handlers

Conifer can be extended to work with almost any configuration format. It's just a case of writing a handler for that file type. The handler API is extremely simple:

conifer.handler.setHandler

This function adds a new handler. It accepts two arguments – a file extension and a handler function. The handler function should accept a content string and return a successfully parsed object or throw an error.

conifer.handler.setHandler('xml', function (fileContent) {
    try {
        return myMagicXmlLib.parse(fileContent);
    } catch (error) {
        throw error;
    }
});

With the above code, any call to conifer.parse or conifer.parseSync with a file path that has a .xml extension will use the specified handler function to parse the file content.

---

conifer.handler.getHandler

This function gets a handler that's been set already. This function accepts a single argument – the file extension to get the handler for, and returns the requested function.

conifer.handler.getHandler('json'); // [Function]

---

conifer.handler.removeHandler

This function removes a handler that's been set already. This function accepts a single argument – the file extension to get the handler for.

conifer.handler.removeHandler('json');
conifer.handler.getHandler('json'); // undefined

Development

In order to develop Conifer, you'll need to install the following npm modules globally like so:

npm install -g coffee-script
npm install -g jake

And then install development dependencies locally with:

npm install

Once you have these dependencies, you will be able to run the following commands:

jake build: Build JavaScript from the CoffeeScript source.

jake lint: Run CoffeeLint on the CoffeeScript source.

jake test: Run all unit tests.

License

Conifer is licensed under the MIT license.