requirish

requirish is a tool for avoiding the ../../../ relative paths problem and includes a browserify-transform to rewrites the require() for browser.

You can use it both for your application and also if you are writing a library that could be referenced by others as dependency!

Installation

$ npm install --save requirish

Usage

In the code, before other require() calls:

require('requirish')._(module);
...

As a browserify-transform:

$ browserify -t requirish app.js > bundle.js

Example

Developing a not trivial Node.js application/library you will face a lot of annoying relative paths in your require() as soon as you start creating a module hierarchy under your ./lib source folder.

Your application, in this example, could have a 'jet.js' module like the following:

$ /Users/bob/my-app/lib/gui/controller/jet.js

and the relative unit-test with the following path:

$ /Users/bob/my-app/test/gui/controller/jet.test.js

Therefore, your 'jet.test.js' unit-test could begin like this:

var jetController = require('../../../lib/gui/controller/jet');
...

In such a case, browserify could resolve this long require() without any problem..

But, how to avoid using the ../../../ relative path to find the 'jet.js' module?

Well, you could write the require('requirish')._(module); statement - only one time for each module and before other require() - like the following:

require('requirish')._(module);
 
var jetController = require('lib/gui/controller/jet');
...

Fine! We will be happy to have now a path-decoupled require() but..
browserify will stop to resolve this new smart version!

And here requirish comes again to the rescue and transforms automagically all the smart require() in the previous ../../../ long version only for the browserify processor!

So, you could run the following browserify command adding the transform:

$ browserify -t requirish test/gui/controller/jet.test.js > test-bundle.js

Now, you will get a bundle that runs on browser without problem! :)

License

The project is released under the Mit License