requireg

Require and resolve global modules in node.js like a boss.

Differences with require()

requireg tries to find modules in global locations which are not natively supported by the node.js module resolve algorithm.

It support both npm/yarn global packages installation paths.

Supported locations:

• $HOME/node_modules (instead of $HOME/.node_modules)
• $HOME/node_libraries (instead of $HOME/.node_libraries)
• $HOME/node_packages (specific of requireg)
• $PREFIX/lib/node_modules (instead of $PREFIX/lib/node)
• $NODE_MODULES (use the specific modules path environment variable)

Resolution priority

1. Resolve via native require() (unless second parameter is true)
2. User home directory ($HOME or %USERPROFILE%)
3. Node installation path
4. $NODE_MODULES (can have different multiple paths, semicolon separated)
5. Common operative system installation paths

Installation

$ npm install requireg --save[-dev]

$ yarn add requireg

API

requireg(path: string, onlyGlobal: boolean = false)

Usage

Load global modules

var requireg = require('requireg')
// require a globally installed package
var npm = requireg('npm')

Load only global modules

var requireg = require('requireg')
// require a globally installed package and skip local packages
var eslint = requireg('eslint', true)

Resolve module path

var modulePath = requireg.resolve('npm')
// returns '/usr/local/lib/node_modules/npm/lib/npm.js'

Globalize it

require('requireg').globalize()

Now it is globally available from any source file

var globalModule = requireg('npm')

Module not found

requireg maintains the same behavior as the native require(). It will throw an Error exception if the module was not found

Considerations

• Require global modules in node.js is considered anti-pattern. Note that you can experiment unreliability or inconsistency across different environments. I hope you know exactly what you do with requireg
• Only node packages installed with npm or yarn are supported (which means only standardized NPM paths are supported)

Possible extra features

• Custom environment variable with custom path to resolve global modules.

License

Released under MIT license