gulp-job

Wrap files in self invoking functions that bind them to an object. Possibly compiled Jade templates.

Installation

npm install gulp-job

Use case

Gulp job will wrap a file in a self invoking function that in turn binds the 'file' to a namespace on an object. The following describes the specific use case that lead to the creation of gulp-job.

Lets say you have a Jade template, something like:

p Hello world

And you want to compile this, load it in as a client side script and then access it in a way such as:

window.templates.example([locals]);

Gulp-job can take a compiled template (my-example.js) such as:

function template(locals) {
  var buf = [];
  var jade_mixins = {};
  var jade_interp;
 
  buf.push("<p>Hello world</p>");
  return buf.join("");
}

and wrap it like so:

(function (window) {
  window.templates = window.templates || {};
  window.templates.myExample = function template(locals) {
    var buf = [];
    var jade_mixins = {};
    var jade_interp;
 
    buf.push("<p>Hello world</p>");
    return buf.join("");
}})(window);

Usage

var gulp = require('gulp'),
    jade = require('gulp-jade'),
    job = require('gulp-job');
 
gulp.task('job', function () {
  return gulp.src(['src/templates/*.jade'])
    .pipe(jade({ client: true }))
    .pipe(job())
    .pipe(gulp.dest('public/templates'));
});

This will compile your templates using gulp-jade and wrap them as shown above so that they can be included like normal js files.

Options

Gulp-job accepts an options object with the following attributes

parent (string)

default: 'window'

The object to bind to.

namespace (string)

default: 'templates'

The namespace to bind to

seperator (string)

default: '-'

The file name seperator. This will be used for converting file names to camel case object references.

i.e with the default settings the template file my-example.js would be accessible with:

window.templates.myExample();

It's a bit specific isn't it?

Yes it is, we had a very specific problem and we built a very specific solution to it. We also needed it to be part of our Gulp task flow.

Maybe someone else will have that very same specific problem one day; so here it is for all to use, fork, share, whatever.

Licence

MIT