Is it possible to pass locals to a required module? For example:
// in main.js
var words = { a: 'hello', b:'world'};
require('module.js', words);
// in module.js
console.log(words.a + ' ' + words.b) // --> Hello World
I'm asking this because in PHP when you require or include, the file which includes another files inherits it's variables, which is very useful in some cases, and I would be happy if this could be done in node.js too.
var words = { a: 'hello', b:'world'};
require('module.js', words);
var words = { a: 'hello', b:'world'};
require('module.js');
Both of these gives ReferenceError: words is not defined when words is called in module.js
So is it possible at all without global variables?
What you want to do is export it with an argument so you can pass it the variable.
module.js
module.exports = function(words){
console.log(words.a + ' ' + words.b);
};
main.js
var words = { a: 'hello', b:'world'};
// Pass the words object to module
require('module')(words);
You can also chop off the .js in the require :)
The question is: What do you want to achieve?
If you want to export just a static function you can use the answer from tehlulz. If you want to store an object inside the exports property and benefit from the require-caching node.js provides a (dirty) approach would be to you globals. I guess this is what you have tried.
Using JavaScript in a Web-Browser context you can use the window object to store global values. Node provides only one object that is global for all modules: the process object:
main.js
process.mysettings = { a : 5, b : 6};
var mod = require(mymod);
mymod.js
module.exports = { a : process.mysettings.a, b : process.mysettings.b, c : 7};
Alternatively if you are not interested in the exports caching you could do something like that:
main.js
var obj = require(mymod)(5,6);
mymod.js
module.exports = function(a,b){
return { a : a, b : b, c : 7, d : function(){return "whatever";}};
};