Dec
22

Javascript – One line global + export

vjeux Javascript 2011-12-22

I've been working on code that works on Browser, Web Workers and NodeJS. In order to export my module, I've been writing ugly code like this one:

(function () {
  /* ... Code that defines MyModule ... */
 
  var all;
  if (typeof self !== 'undefined') {
    all = self; // Web Worker
  } else if (typeof window !== 'undefined') {
    all = window; // Browser
  } else if (typeof global !== 'undefined') {
    all = global; // NodeJS
  }
  all.MyModule = MyModule;
 
  if (typeof module !== 'undefined') {
    module.exports = MyModule;
  }
})();

One-line Solution

Guillaume Marty showed me that sink.js uses this as a replacement for self, window and global. I managed to add support for module.exports in a one-liner!

(function (global) {
  /* ... Code that defines MyModule ... */
 
  global.MyModule = (global.module || {}).exports = MyModule;
})(this);

I have been looking for this magic line for a long time, I hope it will be useful to you too 🙂

If you liked this article, you might be interested in my Twitter feed as well.
 
All Posts
«
»
 

Related Posts

  • August 19, 2011 Javascript – Stupid Idea: Hoisting at the end (133)
    JSLint imposes us to do manual hoisting of variables. What if we did it but at the end of the function? :P How you write function print_array (array) { var length = array.length; for (var i = 0; i < length; ++i) { var elem = array[i]; console.log(elem); […]
  • September 22, 2011 URLON: URL Object Notation (43)
    #json, #urlon, #rison { width: 100%; font-size: 12px; padding: 5px; height: 18px; color: #560061; } I am in the process of rewriting MMO-Champion Tables and I want a generic way to manage the hash part of the URL (#table__search_results_item=4%3A-slot). I no longer […]
  • August 29, 2011 Javascript: Improve Cache Performance: Reduce Lookups (4)
    In my Binary Decision Diagram Library, the performance bottleneck was the uniqueness cache. By reducing the number of cache lookup, it is possible to greatly improve the performances. Common pattern In order to test if the key is already in the cache, the usual pattern is to use key […]
  • August 19, 2011 jParser – Binary File Parsing revisited using Javascript (11)
    Writing a parser for a structured binary format such as a 3D model is extremely annoying. You have first to declare your file structure, and then go over every structure again and make a proper code to parse it. This is mainly caused because the lack of introspection of C/C++ and for […]
  • November 5, 2011 Simulated Annealing Project (2)
    For a school project, I have to implement Simulated Annealing meta heuristic. Thanks to many open source web tools, I've been able to quickly do the project and have a pretty display. CoffeeScript, Raphael, Highcharts, Three.js, Twitter Bootstrap, jQuery and Web […]
Sovrn