fnoc

Node.js - fnoc

fnoc is conf backwards. This module automatically loads JSON configuration files. It first finds your package.json file and considers that the root directory of the package, the packageDir. This enables you to have multiple modules that also use fnoc. It then looks for any JSON files in the packageDir and #{packageDir}/config.

Why?

Because loading JSON writing logic to read JSON configuration files over and over is annoying. Also, I wanted a module that could load JSON config files relative to the module path and not the current directory.

Installation

npm install fnoc

This module has had serious changes in the API every revision. Don't use it until the API stablizes.

Example

Let's assume that you have a database configuration file named database.json in your ./config directory and it looks like this:

{
    "host": "localhost",
    "port": 27017
}

Require the fnoc function:

var fnoc = require('fnoc');


fnoc(function(err, configs) {
  console.log(configs.database.host); //localhost
  console.log(configs.database.port); //27017

  //automatically loads package.json
  console.log(configs.package.name); //YOUR PACKAGE NAME
})

It will not load nor crash if a JSON file can't be parsed. Instead, the err variable in the callback is null if no errors exist or it's an object with the file name as key and the Error object as the value.

So, let's say you have the file: /tmp/malformed.json

malformed.json:

{
    this is NOT valid JSON
}

Load malformed.json:

var fnoc = require('fnoc');

fnoc(function(err, configs) {
  console.log(err['/tmp/malformed.json']) //string representation of the error
})

Now Let's assume that your database configuration file looks like this:

{
    "development": {
        "name": "myapp_development",
        "host": "127.0.0.1",
        "port": 27017
    },
    "test": {
        "name": "myapp_test",
        "host": "127.0.0.1",
        "port": 27017
    },
    "production": {
        "name": "myapp_production",
        "host": "myserver.com",
        "port": 27017
    }
}

Now if you call the env() method:

var fnoc = require('fnoc');

fnoc(function(err, configs) {
  var envConfigs = configs.env();
  console.log(envConfigs.database.name); //output depending upon NODE_ENV   
});

Test Environment:

NODE_ENV=test node myapp.js

yields...

console.log(configs.database.name); //myapp_test

Author

This module was written by JP Richardson. You should follow him on Twitter @jprichardson. Also read his coding blog Procbits. If you write software with others, you should checkout Gitpilot to make collaboration with Git simple.

License

Licensed under MIT. See LICENSE for more details.

Copyright (c) 2012 JP Richardson