Welcome to your very own Sweet Potato 🍠

This is a little collection of node-js libs that are useful for command line tools. I plan to clean these up, add some tests and spin these off into their own little repos.

The libraries

allMyChildren

Iterates over all objects within a JavaScript object tree.

const allMyChildren = require('sweet-potato').allMyChildren;

allMyChildren(node, setLeafFromResult, runFunction, key, parent);

args

Pulls out arguments sent into a script on the command line and makes them available in an easier way than using process.args.

> node somescript.js fruit=apple v=carrot count=3

...now, in somescript.js:

const args = require('sweet-potato').args;
args.declare(['fruit', 'f'], 'string');
args.declare(['veggie', 'v'], 'string');
args.declare(['count', 'c'], 'number');

console.log(args.fruit); //'apple'
console.log(args.veggie); //'carrot'
console.log(args.count); //'3'

awaitNewFiles

Watch a particular directory until a new file arrives. Useful for watching for downloads.

const awaitNewFiles = require('sweet-potato').awaitNewFiles;

awaitNewFiles('/Users/mrpotato/Downloads', function(newFilesArray) {
    ...
});

customStringify

Alternative to JSON.stringify() when you have an object with circular structures.

const customStringify = require('sweet-potato').customStringify;

dateStuff

Some useful date functions lazily gathered into one library.

const dateStuff = require('sweet-potato').dateStuff;

log

Alternative to console.log that is both shorter to type, and provides more useful output for objects, arrays, etc.

const log = require('sweet-potato').log;

log(1); //prints 1
log(someObject); //prints JSON pretty printed
log(someArrayOfArrays); //prints using console.table.

permutator

Provides all permutations of an array.

const permutator = require('sweet-potato').permutator;

var arr = [1,2,3];
var p = permutator(arr);

//p should equal [ [ 1, 2, 3 ], [ 1, 3, 2 ], [ 2, 1, 3 ], [ 2, 3, 1 ], [ 3, 1, 2 ], [ 3, 2, 1 ] ]

readCsv

A simple wrapper around fast-csv;

const readCsv = require('sweet-potato').readCsv;

readCsv('/Users/mrpotato/Documents/harvest.csv', { leaveCaseAlone: true }, function(rows) {
    //rows is an array of JavaScript objects, one for each row of CSV
});

runCommand

A simple wrapper around child_process to run commands. This needs some rethinking to be generally usable.

const runCommand = require('sweet-potato').runCommand;

runCommand('open /Users/mrpotato/Documents/harvest.csv');

SeededRandom

A way to get pseudo-random numbers that are repeatable. At least on the same machine.

const SeededRandom = require('sweet-potato').SeededRandom;

var rand = new SeededRandom(5);
rand.next(); // returns 0.35067478337943214
rand.next(); // returns 0.9891305176801097
rand.get([1,2,3,4,5]); //returns 3 -- selects a random item from array
rand.get(10); //returns 2 -- selects a random number from 0 to 9 (less than 10)
rand.shuffle([1,2,3,4,5,6]); //returns [ 1, 4, 3, 5, 2, 6 ]

//rerunning this code should produce the same results.

writeCsv

Simple wrapper around csv-writer.

const writeCsv = require('sweet-potato').writeCsv;

writeCsv('/Users/mrpotato/Documents/gardenPlan.csv', arrayOfObjectsSameKeys);

FAQs

Why is it called Sweet Potato? I really like sweet potatoes, and literally all the other names are taken.

There's already a better library for function X Cool, sometimes these things are hard to find!

Some of this code is not good, so like, why? Been busy.