There are two basic ways that I see Node modules being written. The first setting each function or variable you want to export to its own property on module.exports:
module.exports.foo = function () {
...
}
And the second is creating a new object that has the properties you want to export, and assigning module.exports to that at the end of the file:
var FooObject = {
foo: function () {
...
}
};
...
module.exports = FooObject;
A third thing that I sometimes see is setting module.exports to an object which has all the properties you want to export, but for the purposes of this discussion, that's equivalent to the first method I mentioned:
module.exports = {
foo: function () {
...
}
}
Are we wasting memory by doing it the second way (creating an object and assigning module.exports to that)? I always thought that since all assignment is a reference, a new object should be created when you do module.exports = {...} so these two would be equivalent. Is that not the case?
The last two examples are equivalent. The only difference is that the second one is setting the object by name and the third is setting it by the object literal.