which-module

What is which-module?

The which-module npm package is designed to help developers identify the module object for a given request. This is particularly useful in scenarios where you need to know which module is calling a function or when debugging to understand the module dependency tree. It provides a straightforward API to get the module based on a reference to it.

What are which-module's main functionalities?

Identifying the module for a given reference

This feature allows developers to find out the module object for a specific reference. In the code sample, `which-module` is used to identify the module object for 'some-module' by accessing it through `require.cache` and `require.resolve`. This can be particularly useful for debugging purposes or when implementing custom module loaders or handlers.

const whichModule = require('which-module');
const moduleInfo = whichModule(require.cache[require.resolve('some-module')]);
console.log(moduleInfo);

Other packages similar to which-module

resolve

The 'resolve' package is similar to 'which-module' in that it helps with module resolution. However, 'resolve' focuses more on asynchronously resolving the path of a module according to the Node.js `require.resolve` algorithm, rather than identifying the module object itself. It's more about finding where a module is located rather than identifying the module's object.

caller

The 'caller' package provides functionality to identify the caller of a function, which can indirectly help in understanding module interactions. While 'which-module' directly identifies the module object for a given reference, 'caller' helps in tracing back the call stack to see which module or function made the current call. This can be useful for debugging or tracking function calls across modules.

README

which-module

Find the module object for something that was require()d

Find the module object in require.cache for something that was require()d or imported - essentially a reverse require() lookup.

Useful for libs that want to e.g. lookup a filename for a module or submodule that it did not require() itself.

Install and Usage

npm install --save which-module

const whichModule = require('which-module')

console.log(whichModule(require('something')))
// Module {
//   id: '/path/to/project/node_modules/something/index.js',
//   exports: [Function],
//   parent: ...,
//   filename: '/path/to/project/node_modules/something/index.js',
//   loaded: true,
//   children: [],
//   paths: [ '/path/to/project/node_modules/something/node_modules',
//            '/path/to/project/node_modules',
//            '/path/to/node_modules',
//            '/path/node_modules',
//            '/node_modules' ] }

API

whichModule(exported)

Return the module object, if any, that represents the given argument in the require.cache.

exported can be anything that was previously require()d or imported as a module, submodule, or dependency - which means exported is identical to the module.exports returned by this method.

If exported did not come from the exports of a module in require.cache, then this method returns null.

License

ISC © Contributors

Changelog

2.0.1 (2023-04-21)

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