roodles (NPM project)

This project is just like Nodemon. It strives to accomplish the same thing. My team was having troubles with Nodemon, and so we wrote something we could tweak on our own. Maybe it works better, maybe it doesn't. We think it does. All the code is in one file, so you can steal it easily :)

Installation

=> npm install -D roodles@latest

You can put a roodles.conf.js file at the root of your project:

//roodles.conf.js

module.exports = Object.freeze({
   exec: '<path-to-exec-file>',  // any binary file or a file with a hashbang
   include: ['c'],   // list of regexes or strings
   exclude: [/a/,'b'],
   verbosity: 2,  // an integer {1,2,3}
   processArgs: []  // the args that get sent to your process
});

Recommended workflow

Install roodles as a dev dependency (as described above).

Then add this bash script to your project:

#!/usr/bin/env bash

cd $(dirname "$0")
./node_modules/.bin/roodles $@

Then just run this bash script, and roodles will do its thing.

Usage: Here's the API

Currently the API is a command line interface (CLI) only.

After installing locally, you can run:

./node_modules/.bin/roodles 

if you don't use the roodles.conf.js file, then you will need to at the very least specify which exec file to use.

To specify that, you will use the --exec option like:

./node_modules/.bin/roodles --exec <file>

remember that your --exec file must have a hashbang or be binary.

Remember

To use roodles, your --exec file must be binary or have a hashbang; with node.js, that looks like:

#!/usr/bin/env node
console.log('this node.js file has a hashbang at the top, telling ' +
 'the OS which executable to use to execute the file.');

Using the hashbang scheme means you can easily go beyond node.js exec scripts, and use bash, python, ruby, perl, or even binary files like golang executables (which don't need a hashbang), etc, etc.

Here are the default roodles.conf.js options:

const defaults = {
  verbosity: 2,              // 1 is lowest verbosity, 3 is highest
  signal: 'SIGKILL',         // We recommend using SIGINT or SIGTERM and gracefully shutting down your process instead*
  processArgs: [],           // we don't know what args to pass to your process!
  restartUponChange: true,
  restartUponAddition: false,
  restartUponUnlink: false,
  processLogPath: null,         // if desired, pass a relative or absolute path to log file
  include: projectRoot,         // default is to watch all files in your project
  exclude: [                    //...all files except the following!
    /node_modules/,
    /public/,
    /bower_components/,
    /.git/,
    /.idea/,
    /package.json/,
    /test/
  ]
};

Here's the current --help output

options:
    --version                           Print tool version and exit.
    -h, --help                          Print the help information and exit.
    -v INT, --verbosity=INT             Verbosity level => {1, 2, or 3}; the
                                        higher, the more verbose; default is 2.
    --process-args=ARG                  These args are directly passed to your
                                        running process, your should surround
                                        with quotes like so:
                                        --process-args="--foo bar --baz bam".
    --ruc, --restart-upon-change, --restart-upon-changes
                                        Roodles will restart your process upon
                                        file changes.
    --rua, --restart-upon-addition, --restart-upon-additions
                                        Roodles will restart your process upon
                                        file additions.
    --ruu, --restart-upon-unlink, --restart-upon-unlinks
                                        Roodles will restart your process upon
                                        file deletions/unlinking.
    --exec=ARG                          Relative or absolute path of the file
                                        you wish to execute (and re-execute on
                                        changes).
    --include=ARG                       Include these paths (array of regex
                                        and/or strings).
    --exclude=ARG                       Exclude these paths (array of regex
                                        and/or strings).
    -s ARG, --signal=ARG                The --signal option is one of
                                        {"SIGINT","SIGTERM","SIGKILL"}.

name: roodles ?

Roodles is just something I say on occasion, more like: "roodles!". At some point I would have used this name for a software project. This was the right one. I think of roodles being similar to "redo"...like, "restart".

roodles~redo.

Example

Here is an example exec file (a server, which is standard use case), and how to *shutdown gracefully, using SIGINT instead of SIGKILL. You can use SIGTERM/SIGINT, both are better than SIGKILL.

#!/usr/bin/env node

const http = require('http');

const server = http.createServer(function (req, res) {
  setTimeout(function () {
    res.write('flowers');
    res.end();
  }, 100);
});

let exitCode;

server.listen(3000, function () {
  
  console.log(' => Server is listening on port 3000');
  
  process.once('close', function(){
      process.exit(exitCode || 0);
  });

  process.once('SIGINT', function (code) {
    console.log('SIGINT received...');
    server.close();
  });

});

note the hashbang as well as the process.once('SIGINT') handler, which will allow us to gracefully shut down our process.