resolve-dependency-path

resolve-dependency-path

Convert a dependency path into a filepath

I literally wrote this simple function in a handful of projects and decided it should be its own module.

Usage

var resolvePath = require('resolve-dependency-path');

var resolved = resolvePath(depPath, filename, directory);

• depPath: the actual dependency path (probably extracted from a require())
• filename: the file that required this dependency (likely the file whose dependencies are being extracted)
• directory: the root of all modules being processed. Dependencies are often about this root unless they're relative.

Example

If you have a file like:

myapp/foo.js

var require('./bar');

Then if you want to open the file associated with the dependency, you need to resolve ./bar onto the filesystem.

Since ./bar is a relative path, it should be resolved relative to foo.js, more specifically the directory containing foo.js, myapp/. This resolution would yield myapp/bar.js.

This is why the filename attribute is required to use this library.

If you have a non-relative dependency path like:

myapp/foo.js

define([
  'bar'
], function(bar) {

});

Then bar is relative to the root of all files, myapp. The resolution would yield myapp/bar.js.

A more complex example with subdirectories:

myapp/feature1/foo.js

define([
  'feature2/bar'
], function(bar) {

});

The dependency feature2/bar is relative to the root of all files, myapp, not the file foo.js.

This is why the directory attribute is required to use this library.