node.js / backbone.js application load configuration file settings

Question

node.js / backbone.js application load configuration file settings

I have a node / backbone / sails project that needs to have deployment specific configuration files loaded.

So in the sails portion of the app, I can place a config file in myapp/config/mysettings.js

and reference it sails.config.mysettings.foo. This works as expected.

But in the backbone portion of the app, I cannot for the life of me figure out how to reference that same file (... are snips for brevity).

define([
  'jquery',
  'async',
  ...,
  **'/config/mysettings.js'**
], function ($, async, ..., **mysettings**) {

  relevantAjaxFunction: function() {

  ...
  **fail**:
  console.log(mysettings.foo);

Produces an undefined message in the console. What's the correct way to reference an application wide settings file like this? I've looked and cannot find anything, which makes me think it's either super obvious or I'm phrasing the question wrong.

javascript
node.js
backbone.js
sails.js

Answer 1

Sails doesn't make your config files publicly browsable. That would be...bad.

You have a few options here that I can think of:

Make a symlink inside your assets folder that points to the config file. The tricky part here is that the symlink will be copied as-is into your .tmp/public folder, so if you use a relative path in your symlink, it needs to be the relative path from .tmp/public to config/mysettings.js. Or you could just use an absolute path in the symlink.
Make a custom route that just streams the file using fs:
```
require('fs')
.createReadStream(sails.config.paths.config+"/mysettings.js")
.pipe(res);
```
although you should really use the path module for determining the file path, and wrap the whole thing in a try/catch just in case...
Use a policy to add the config settings in a local variable for every request, for example:
```
module.exports = function myConfigPolicy(req, res, next) {
    res.locals.mysettings = sails.config.mysettings;
    return next();
}
```
and in your views/layout.ejs do something like:
```
<script type="text/javascript">
    var mySettings = <%= JSON.stringify(mysettings) %>;
</script>
```
Adjusting for your template engine of choice. Of course this doesn't use AMD to load the config at runtime, so if that's a concern go with choice #1 or #2!