MProc

Message processing middleware, for Node.js/JavaScript. It can chain message processors, simple functions that receives a message (a simple JavaScript object).

Installation

Via npm on Node:

npm install mproc

Usage

Reference in your program:

var mproc = require('mproc');

Create a message processor, and build a chain of message processors

var processor = mproc.createProcessor();
processor.use(function (message, next) { message++; next(null, message); })
    .use(function (message, next) { console.dir(message); })

Each message processor is a function that receives two parameters:

• message: A simple JavaScript object
• next: A function that receives two parameters err, message. It executes the next step in the message processor chain.

You can define a processor with a fail error function:

var processor = mproc.createProcessor()
    .use(function (msg, next) { ... })
    .use(function (msg, next) { ... })
    .fail(function (err) { ... })

The supplied fail function will be invoked if any next function call receives a non-null first argument, or if the middleware function raise an exception.

To send a message to a processor:

processor.run(message);

Note: each function in the chain can have asynchronous processing or not, then it can invoke the next or not.

Usually, each step/function in the message processor chain, calls the next function with the same message. But they can enrich/transform the message, or give another message to the next function.

To give the same message (maybe enriched or transformed), you can call:

next();

without arguments. If you want to send a NEW message to the next steps, use:

next(null, newmessage);

Sometimes, you want to send new message to the same processor. In those cases, the step function can be defined with a third parameter, the context, an auxiliary object with a function post:

function numbers(messsage, next, context) {
    for (var k = 1; k < message.counter; k++)
        context.post({ counter: k });
}

context.post function processes the new message in the next tick.

See the Web Crawler sample for an example of using context.post to produce multiple message in one step.

See Collatz sample for an example using context.post to have a loop in the message process.

Development

git clone git://github.com/ajlopez/MProc.git
cd MProc
npm install
npm test

Samples

• Collatz Collatz problem sample.
• Web Crawler Simple Web Crawler.

To do

• Named subprocessors, to send/post messages.
• Distributed samples.
• context.clone utility function to deep clone a message.

Versions

• 0.0.1: Published, 2013-01-19, with .createProcessor, processor.run, processor.runSync, context.send, context.post.
• 0.0.2: Published. 2014-10-13. Removing proc.runSync, context.send. Adding proc.fail. Using setImmediate.

Contribution

Feel free to file issues and submit pull requests � contributions are welcome.

If you submit a pull request, please be sure to add or update corresponding test cases, and ensure that npm test continues to pass.