Watch-Modules

Chokidar is an awesome module for watching all your files in NodeJs.

However, what happens when you want to watch a file and all other files it requires plus their child modules?

This is the gap this module seeks to fill! 😊

Features

Watch-Modules will:

1. Watch a file or files given any chokidar pattern/file/directory.
2. Automatically watch all modules required downstream
3. Automatically start watching a file that is required as a result of a change in any of the files already being watched.
4. Automatically stop watching a file that is no longer required as a result of a change in any of the files already being watched.

This module was developed as part of liveroute but of course it's use is much broader.

How to?

// require and initialize
const WatchModules = require('watch-modules');
const watchModules = new WatchModules();

// From here on, watch-modules is used just as you would use chokidar

// start watching
let watcher = watchModules.watch(routerPath);

// listen for events
watcher.on('change', (filePath) => {
    logger.info(filePath, ' has changed');
});

API

Init Options

When initializing, you can pass the ignoreRequires option. This option determines how required files are filtered out.

By default ignoreRequires = '**/node_modules/**' which ignores all files required from the node_modules folder.

Unless you really want to have these files monitored (which you shouldn't 🤦), leave the value as is.

Below is an example of how to ignore the vendors directory too.

const watchModules = new WatchModules({
    ignoreRequires = ['**/node_modules/**','**/vendors/**']
});

watch()

Exactly as you would use it in chokidar.

watchModules.watch(paths, [options])

Enjoy!