How can I run two files in javascript with node?

Question

I am new to javascript and Node.js and having problems testing some code I wrote recently. I am trying to test code written in a file called "compareCrowe.js" with "testCrowe.js" using Node.js.

Here are the contents of testCrowe.js:

var compareCrowe = required['./compareCrowe'];
    console.log('begin test');
    var connection = {Type:1, Label:"label", linkTo:null};
    var table1 = {name:"table1", body:"description1", out:[connection]};
    var table2 = {name:"table2", body:"description2", out:null};
    connection.linkTo = table2;
    var crowe = [table1, table2];
    var result = compareCrowe.compareCrowesFoot(crowe, crowe);
    console.log(result.feedback);

where the function "compareCrowesFoot" is defined in compareCrowe.js. From the console on an Ubuntu virtual machine I ran:

node compareCrowe.js testCrowe.js

however, nothing was printed. There were no errors or warnings or explanation of any kind. It didn't even print the "begin test" line I placed at the top of testCrowe.js. If I run the command:

node testCrowe.js

it complains that compareCrowesFoot is undefined. How can I test the contents of compareCrowe.js?

LouisK · Accepted Answer · 2014-11-30 01:34:39Z

Welcome to the party of JS.

I'm not sure where you're learning from, but a few of the resources that have helped me and many others are superherojs.com, nodeschool.io, the MDN developer docs, Node.js API docs, and Youtube (seriously).

The basic idea of Node.js is that it operates with modules (chunks of reusable code), which is what NPM is made up of. These can then be included in other modules and used anywhere else in your application.

So for a basic example, say you had compareCrowe.js, to make it includable/reusable in another file, you could write something like:

module.exports = function() { 
    var compareCrowesFoot = function(crowe1, crowe2) { /* compare crows feet and return something here */ }

    return { compareCrowesFoot: compareCrowesFoot }; 
    // return an object with a property of whatever you want to access it as , and the value as your function name
    // e.g. - you could return { compare: compareCrowesFoot };
}

Then in testCrowe.js you could require compareCrowe like this:

var compareCrowe = require("./compareCrowe");

/* your code here... */
var result = compareCrowe.compareCrowesFoot(crowe1, crowe2);
// if your returned object was { compare: compareCrowesFoot };
// this would be compareCrowe.compare(crowe1, crowe1);

And to run your tests, you could then run node testCrowe.js from the command line.

AJB · Accepted Answer · 2014-11-30 01:26:01Z

0

In your case it seems like you've got your syntax a little messed up. It should be more like:

var compareCrowe = require('./compareCrowe.js');

That would make any methods you've exported in compareCrowe.js, such as your compareCrowe.compareCrowesFoot function, available to testCrowe.js.

Then, in your terminal, you would run the following:

node testCrowe.js

And that should do the trick provided you don't have any further errors in your code.

answered Nov 30, 2014 at 1:26

AJB

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