requirejs-glob

A RequireJS plugin for loading multiple files that match a glob pattern.

Why

Most of the time when using RequireJS you want to explicitly declare each file's dependencies. But there are certain situations where it would be more convenient to load a whole handful of files that have a flat dependency tree. For example when using Angular dependencies are "injected", so the order your controllers, services, templates etc. are loaded doesn't matter. For cases like these, the glob! plugin can be super useful:

require([
  'glob!controllers/**/*.js',
  'glob!services/**/*.js',
  'glob!filters/**/*.js',
  'glob!directives/**/*.js',
]);

Now as you develop your application all new matching files will be included automatically. Each file will also be inlined during the r.js build.

How

The Browser environment has no way to find glob-matching files. So this plugin has a tiny server-side companion that runs during development only, listening for requests from the glob! plugin and returning lists of matching files.

One could accomplish something similar with a pre-run compile step like Grunt or Component, but part of the beauty of RequireJS is that it runs natively in the browser without the need for a build step. Most projects already use a webserver during development anyway. I like to think of this approach as "JIT Compiled AMD" plugin.

This piece is currently available as a Connect and Express compatible middleware.

Getting Started

Install the plugin with Bower: $ bower install requirejs-glob or download glob.js manually.

Add glob to your paths config that points to wherever you installed the glob.js file:

require.config({
  paths: {
    "glob": "../components/requirejs-glob/lib/glob"
  }
})

Add a glob setting to your RequireJS config, that will instruct the server-side piece where to start for the pattern matching:

require.config({
  glob: 'app/js/'
})

It should be the full path from the root of your project to the baseUrl where RequireJS looks to load your scripts from.

Install the Node companion with npm: $ npm install requirejs-glob

Use the requirejs-glob express middleware in your development environment:

app.configure('development', function(){
  //use requirejs-glob middleware
  app.use(require('requirejs-glob')());
});

Once you're all setup you can use the plugin:

require(['glob!controllers/**/*.js'], function(){});

Enjoy!

Grunt integration

The middleware can also be used as part of a Grunt build, where the web server is created with the grunt-contrib-connect task. To do this, the grunt task must be configured with custom middleware.

For a registered task named connect:server, where compiled files are placed in the generated directory, use the middleware configuration option to load support for the requirejs glob middleware.

connect: {
  server: {
    options: {
      base: "generated",
      middleware: function(connect, options) {
        // Return array of whatever middlewares you want
        return [
          require('requirejs-glob')(),
          // standard middleware for static files and dir browsing
          connect.static(options.base),
          connect.directory(options.base)
        ];
      }
    }
  }
}

License

MIT

TODO

[] consider standalone for non-node backends [] tests [] examples