Handling missing modules errors in Node

Question

Handling missing modules errors in Node

I'm working on some cordova hooks that require shelljs. Now if a user doesn't have shelljs installed, they get this error message

module.js:340
    throw err;
          ^
Error: Cannot find module 'shelljs'
    at Function.Module._resolveFilename (module.js:338:15)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:280:25)
    at Module.require (module.js:364:17)
    at require (module.js:380:17)
    ....

So this message is pretty ugly I want to provide a better message to the user. Is there anyway to prevent this message and then allow a custom message through console.log?

node.js
cordova

Answer 1

You can wrap it in a try-catch:

var shelljs;
try {
  shelljs = require('shelljs');
} catch (ex) {
  console.log('ShellJS is required');
  process.exit(1);
}