gulp-heap

Semantic gulp API.

Experimental and still under developing, not suitable for production use

A Quick Peek

gulp = require 'gulp'
heap = {sourcemaps, cli} = require 'gulp-heap'
coffee = heap.require('gulp-coffee')
uglify = heap.require('gulp-uglify')
concat = heap.require('gulp-concat')
 
gulp.task 'coffee',
  coffee('./coffee/**/*.coffee', './lib/')
    .then(uglify())
    .wrapAll().with(sourcemaps()).if(cli.opts.debug)
    .next(concat('all.js')).write('./dist/')

The above gulp task does the following:

• Compile ./coffee/**/*.coffee then write uglified versions to ./lib/
• Generate source maps if debug CLI flag is set (runned with gulp coffee --debug)
• Then concat all .js files and write all.js to ./dist

The equivalent code (without CLI arguments handling) in vanilla gulp API would be:

gulp = require 'gulp'
gutil = require 'gutil'
plumber = require 'gulp-plumber'
coffee = require 'gulp-coffee'
uglify = require 'gulp-uglify'
concat = require 'gulp-concat'
sourcemaps = require 'gulp-sourcemaps'
 
gulp.task 'coffee', ->
  gulp.src('./coffee/**/*.coffee')
    .on('error', gutil.log)
    .pipe(plumber())
    .pipe(sourcemaps.init())
    .pipe(coffee())
    .pipe(uglify())
    .pipe(sourcemaps.write())
    .pipe(gulp.dest('./lib/'))
    .pipe(concat('all.js'))
    .pipe(gulp.dest('./dist/'))

Installation

$ npm install --save-dev gulp-task

The Patterns

Some patterns are observed in my time of using gulp.

Task Life Cycle

gulp.src(src)
  .on('error', gutil.log) # Error handling 
  .pipe(plumber())        # Prevent pipe breaking 
  .pipe(task(opts))
  # Other tasks 
  .pipe(gulp.dest(dst))
  # Do other stuff 

The first called gulp-heap through task would handle all of that with one line of code:

task(src, dst, opts)
  .then(otherTask()) # Chained API 

Sometimes options are needed for gulp.src or gulp.dest calls. The equivalent gulp-heap APIs are:

task(opts).source(src, srcOpts).dest(dst, dstOpts)
 
# Useful when running mocha tests for example: 
mocha(opts).source(testSrc, {read: false})

Through Tasks

Tasks that are called once and connected with .pipe are called through tasks:

file.pipe(task1()).pipe(task2())#... 

They can be chained with .then or .next call:

# task2 are executed before write to dst 
task1(src, dst)
  .then(task2())
  # ... 
# task2 are executed after write to dst 
task2(src, dst)
  .next(task2())
  # ... 

Wrapper Tasks

Tasks that are called before and after another task are called wrapper tasks:

file
  .pipe(wrapper.begin())
  .pipe(task())
  .pipe(wrapper.end())

A more cleaned syntax with .with method:

task(src, dst).with(wrapper())

By default, the wrapper will wrap the one through task before it's called. Multiple tasks can be selected with wrap and wrapAll methods:

# Wrap task1, task2, task3 with wrapper 
task1(src, dst).then(task2()).then(task3()).wrapAll().with(wrapper())
 
# Wrap previous 2 tasks (task2, task3) with wrapper 
task1(src, dst).then(task2()).then(task3()).wrap(2).with(wrapper())

Wrap methods cannot penetrate next call (the nearest gulp.src call):

# Only wraps task3 
task1(src, dst).then(task2()).next(task3()).wrapAll().with(wrapper())
# Throws a RangeError 
task1(src, dst).then(task2()).next(task3()).wrap(2).with(wrapper())

Conditional Tasks

Sometimes you will want to toggle some tasks with bool values (i.e from CLI):

file = gulp.src(src)
if (debug)
  file = file.pipe(task1())
file.pipe(task2())

It gets messy with wrappers:

file = gulp.src(src)
if (debug)
  file = file.pipe(wrapper.begin())
file.pipe(task2())
if (debug)
  file = file.pipe(wrapper.end())

Instead, try this:

task(src, dst).then(task1()).if(debug)
 
task(src, dst).then(task2()).with(wrapper).if(debug)

API

See last section for most of the APIs

• Better API docs

Require Helper

Create through tasks or wrappers with vanilla gulp plugins:

heap = require 'gulp-heap'
coffee = heap.require('gulp-coffee')
sourcemaps = heap.require('gulp-sourcemaps').asWrapper('init', 'write')
 
# Initiate a task 
coffee(src, dst, opts)
 
# As a through task 
otherTask(src, dst)
  .then(coffee(opts)) # src, dst are omitted 
  .with(sourcemaps())

Convertor

Some gulp plugin modules like gulp-csslint exports in multiple fields and cannot be required directly. They can be converted by:

heap = require 'gulp-heap'
# Require directly 
csslint = require('gulp-csslint')
# Then convert 
lint      = heap.convert(csslint).toTask()
reporter  = heap.convert(csslint.reporter).toTask()

Current limitations:

• The plugin should only take one arguments

Recipes

Browserify

Direct translation from Gulp Recipes | Browserify + Transforms:

source = heap.require('vinyl-source-stream')
buffer = heap.require('vinyl-buffer')
uglify = heap.require('gulp-uglify')
browserify = heap.convert((opts) -> require('browserify')(opts).bundle()).toTask()
 
gulp.task 'browser',
  browserify(browserifyOpts)
    .then(source('app.js'))
    .then(buffer()).dest(dist)
    .next(uglify())
    .rename('app.min.js')
    .write(dist)