NPM as a Task Runner
What is a task? Something we need to do.
Common Tasks
- run test suite
- compilng Sass/TypeScript/CoffeeScript
- starting a web server
- starting a worker
npm tasks are called scripts -> add to 'scripts' in package.json
"<name>": "<code>"
then you can simply go...
npm run <name>!
Types of tasks:
- Built-in
- eg tests etc
- can be run as npm test instead of npm run test
- Arbitrary
- requires a "run"
- eg npm run compile
For getting a project ready to be deployed...
in the tests folder... test_dice.js //used in this example
mocha is used as a mocha and uglify-js to compile all js files into one.
Often encouraged to save global test scripts.
node_modules/.bin/mocha //this is an executable
Can run from npm without writing this.
Change "test": "mocha" in the scripts.
now we can go...
npm run test //don't even need run since it is built-in
//////////////////////////////////////////
Creating our own arbitrary scripts
We can use the uglify to create an app.js
Large, annoying code... node_modules/.bin/uglifyjs src/models/* src/frontend.js -m -c -o build/app.js
//m flag reduces some names //c combines into single file
INSTEAD, CREATE OUR OWN TASK
"uglify": "node_modules/.bin/uglifyjs src/models/* src/frontend.js -m -c -o build/app.js"
Now, we can just type: npm run uglify
And TADAAAAA!
For our css etc.
"copy-files": "cp src/.html build/ & cp src/.css build/"
npm run copy-files
Now for a single task!
"build": "npm run copy-files && npm run uglify" //&& run sequentially, & run in parallel
npm help scripts //shows other default scripts