confidant

Configure your project for ninja's parallel and incremental builds with pure js.

Overview

Confidant will scan the filesystem rooted at the directory from which it is run for files named configure.js. configure.js files look like this:

// configure.js example
var denodeify = require('promise').denodeify;
var exec = require('mz/child_process').exec;
var fs = require('mz/fs');
var mkdirp = denodeify(require('mkdirp'));
var ncp = denodeify(require('ncp').ncp);
var rimraf = denodeify(require('rimraf'));
var rjs = require('requirejs');
 
module.exports = [
  {
    inputs: ['build.js', 'js/**/*.js'],
    outputs: 'app.js',
    rule: function() {
      return fs.readFile('./build.js', 'utf8').then(function(contents) {
        var config = JSON.parse(contents);
        return new Promise(function(resolve) {
          rjs.optimize(config, resolve);
        });
      });
    }
  },
  {
    inputs: ['index.html', 'app.js', 'style/**/*'],
    outputs: 'application.zip',
    rule: function() {
      return mkdirp('stage')
      .then(function() {
        return Promise.all([
          ncp('index.html', 'stage/index.html'),
          ncp('app.js', 'stage/app.js'),
          ncp('style', 'stage/style')
        ]);
      })
      .then(function() {
        return exec('zip application.zip index.html app.js style', {
          cwd: './stage'
        });
      })
      .then(function() {
        return fs.rename('./stage/application.zip', './application.zip');
      })
      .then(function() {
        return rimraf('./stage');
      });
    }
  }
];

And combine and convert them into a build.ninja file like so

# This ninja build file was generated by confidant.
# Do not modify it directly. Instead, modify one or
# more configure.js files.

rule rule-0
  command = cd /home/gareth/Documents/confidant/test/fixtures/rjs && node -e "var denodeify = require('promise').denodeify;var exec = require('mz/child_process').exec;var fs = require('mz/fs');var mkdirp = denodeify(require('mkdirp'));var ncp = denodeify(require('ncp').ncp);var rimraf = denodeify(require('rimraf'));var rjs = require('requirejs');module.exports = [  {    inputs: ['build.js', 'js/**/*.js'],    outputs: 'app.js',    rule: function() {      return fs.readFile('./build.js', 'utf8').then(function(contents) {        var config = JSON.parse(contents);        return new Promise(function(resolve) {          rjs.optimize(config, resolve);        });      });    }  },  {    inputs: ['index.html', 'app.js', 'style/**/*'],    outputs: 'application.zip',    rule: function() {      return mkdirp('stage')      .then(function() {        return Promise.all([          ncp('index.html', 'stage/index.html'),          ncp('app.js', 'stage/app.js'),          ncp('style', 'stage/style')        ]);      })      .then(function() {        return exec('zip application.zip index.html app.js style', {          cwd: './stage'        });      })      .then(function() {        return fs.rename('./stage/application.zip', './application.zip');      })      .then(function() {        return rimraf('./stage');      });    }  }];(function rule() {    return fs.readFile('./build.js', 'utf8').then(function (contents) {      var config = JSON.parse(contents);      return new Promise(function (resolve) {        rjs.optimize(config, resolve);      });    });  })()"

build /home/gareth/Documents/confidant/test/fixtures/rjs/app.js: rule-0 /home/gareth/Documents/confidant/test/fixtures/rjs/build.js /home/gareth/Documents/confidant/test/fixtures/rjs/js/hello.js /home/gareth/Documents/confidant/test/fixtures/rjs/js/main.js

rule rule-1
  command = cd /home/gareth/Documents/confidant/test/fixtures/rjs && node -e "var denodeify = require('promise').denodeify;var exec = require('mz/child_process').exec;var fs = require('mz/fs');var mkdirp = denodeify(require('mkdirp'));var ncp = denodeify(require('ncp').ncp);var rimraf = denodeify(require('rimraf'));var rjs = require('requirejs');module.exports = [  {    inputs: ['build.js', 'js/**/*.js'],    outputs: 'app.js',    rule: function() {      return fs.readFile('./build.js', 'utf8').then(function(contents) {        var config = JSON.parse(contents);        return new Promise(function(resolve) {          rjs.optimize(config, resolve);        });      });    }  },  {    inputs: ['index.html', 'app.js', 'style/**/*'],    outputs: 'application.zip',    rule: function() {      return mkdirp('stage')      .then(function() {        return Promise.all([          ncp('index.html', 'stage/index.html'),          ncp('app.js', 'stage/app.js'),          ncp('style', 'stage/style')        ]);      })      .then(function() {        return exec('zip application.zip index.html app.js style', {          cwd: './stage'        });      })      .then(function() {        return fs.rename('./stage/application.zip', './application.zip');      })      .then(function() {        return rimraf('./stage');      });    }  }];(function rule() {    return mkdirp('stage').then(function () {      return Promise.all([ncp('index.html', 'stage/index.html'), ncp('app.js', 'stage/app.js'), ncp('style', 'stage/style')]);    }).then(function () {      return exec('zip application.zip index.html app.js style', {        cwd: './stage'      });    }).then(function () {      return fs.rename('./stage/application.zip', './application.zip');    }).then(function () {      return rimraf('./stage');    });  })()"

build /home/gareth/Documents/confidant/test/fixtures/rjs/application.zip: rule-1 /home/gareth/Documents/confidant/test/fixtures/rjs/index.html /home/gareth/Documents/confidant/test/fixtures/rjs/app.js /home/gareth/Documents/confidant/test/fixtures/rjs/style/app.css

This enables web devs to write their build rules in a comfortable setting while leveraging ninja's ability to run independent tasks in parallel and update targets incrementally.

Specifying rules asynchronously

Suppose you wanted to defer specifying parts of a build config (a given task's inputs, rule, and outputs) until runtime. Additionally, imagine you need to do some work asynchronously to figure out parts of your build config. For that case, confidant also supports exporting a readable stream which your build will write rules to as it discovers them. For instance:

var Promise = require('es6-promise').Promise;
var Readable = require('stream').Readable;
var inherits = require('util').inherits;
 
function BuildRuleStream() {
  Readable.call(this, { objectMode: true });
  this.buffer = [];
  this.finished = false;
  this._fillUpBufferAsync();
}
inherits(BuildRuleStream, Readable);
module.exports = BuildRuleStream;
 
BuildRuleStream.prototype._read = function() {
  if (this.buffer.length) {
    return this.push(this.buffer.shift());
  }
 
  if (this.finished && !this.buffer.length) {
    return this.push(null);
  }
 
  return setTimeout(this._read.bind(this), 10);
};
 
BuildRuleStream.prototype._fillUpBufferAsync = function() {
  // Does some async things to determine build rules and pushes them
  // onto this.buffer as they come in. Sets this.finished to true
  // once all the build rules have been pushed onto the buffer.
};

Installation

confidant is an npm package. You can install it globally with npm install -g confidant. Note that it's only tested with nodejs and iojs versions 0.12 and up.

Usage

From the command line

From confidant -h

usage: confidant [-h] [-v] [--exclude EXCLUDE] dir

Command line tool to configure your ninja build in pure js

Positional arguments:
  dir                Where to search for configure.js build files

Optional arguments:
  -h, --help         Show this help message and exit.
  -v, --version      Show program's version number and exit.
  --exclude EXCLUDE  Optional comma separated list of directories to
                     omit from fs scan

From within nodejs

var confidant = require('confidant');
// confidant can be invoked with an object representing its command line args
confidant({
  dir: './path/to/somewhere',
  exclude: 'bower_components,node_modules'  // Or whatever else
});