How to use node.js libraries that have transitive dependencies with Meteor?

Question

How to use node.js libraries that have transitive dependencies with Meteor?

It is possible to use node.js packages within Meteor as described here, however as require is not defined globally, packages having transitive dependencies (as for example xml2js or aws-lib) break with

ReferenceError: require is not defined Any ideas on how to fix or work around this issue without altering the libraries?

node.js
meteor

Answer 1

I followed the instructions from your linked question. I used the node-xml2js library to test this with the test fixture from the code base and achieved it in the following way.

Meteor.startup(function () {

    // This solves the issue
    var require = __meteor_bootstrap__.require;

    // The example from node-xml2js readme
    var fs = require('fs'),
        xml2js = require('xml2js');

    var parser = new xml2js.Parser();
    fs.readFile('/home/prashant/order.xml', 'utf8', function(err, data) {
        parser.parseString(data, function (err, result) {
            console.log(result);
            console.log('Done');
        });
    });
});

I think the key was to define a variable require and assign it to Meteor's require function. When Meteor loads the server assets, it also loads require and solves the problem of the transitive dependency. I made no changes to the node-xml2js library.

Hope this helps!

Answer 2

In the latest version of Meteor (0.6.3, and presumably onwards), you need to use Npm.require() instead of require() by itself.