grunt-concat-in-order

Concatenates files respecting dependencies.

Getting Started

This plugin requires Grunt ~0.4.1

If you haven't used Grunt before, be sure to check out the Getting Started guide, as it explains how to create a Gruntfile as well as install and use Grunt plugins. Once you're familiar with that process, you may install this plugin with this command:

npm install grunt-concat-in-order --save-dev

Once the plugin has been installed, it may be enabled inside your Gruntfile with this line of JavaScript:

grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-concat-in-order');

The "concat_in_order" task

Overview

The concat_in_order task extracts declared required dependencies as well as provided modules/classes from your javascript (or any other text) files. Having this dependency graph the task will perform topological sort and concatenate file so that all modules will be put after their required dependencies.

In your project's Gruntfile, add a section named concat_in_order to the data object passed into grunt.initConfig().

grunt.initConfig({
  concat_in_order: {
    your_target: {
      options: {
          /*
          this is the default banner prepended to the resulting file
          banner: '',
          this is a default function that extracts required dependencies/module names from file content
          (getMatches - function that pick groups from given regexp)
          extractRequired: function (filepath, filecontent) {
            return this.getMatches(/require\(['"]([^'"]+)['"]/g, filecontent);
          },
          this is a default function that extracts declared modules names from file content
          extractDeclared: function (filepath, filecontent) {
            return this.getMatches(/declare\(['"]([^'"]+)['"]/g, filecontent);
          }
          */
      },
      files: {
        'build/concatenated.js': ['lib/**/*.js']
      }
    }
  }
})

Sample

Let's say you have 4 files in a lib directory

• AUsingBaseBAndBaseA.js

/*start AUsingBaseBAndBaseA*/
framwork.require('module.BaseB');
framwork.require('module.BaseA');
framework.declare('module.UsingBaseBAndBaseA');
var forth = function fourthFunction(){};
/*end AUsingBaseBAnddBaseA*/

• AUsingBaseA.js

/*start AUsingBaseA*/
framwork.require('module.BaseA');
var second = function secondFunction(){};
/*end AUsingBaseA*/

• BaseA.js

/*start BaseA*/
framework.declare('module.BaseA');
var first = function firstFunction(){};
/*end BaseA*/

• BaseBUsingBaseA.js

/*start BaseBUsingBaseA*/
framwork.require('module.BaseA');
framework.declare('module.BaseBUsingBaseA');
framework.declare('module.BaseB');
var third = function thirdFunction(){};
/*end  BaseBUsingBaseA*/

Given the above configuration the task will produce build/concatenated.js file with following content:

/*start BaseA*/
framework.declare('module.BaseA');
var first = function firstFunction(){};
/*end BaseA*/
/*start BaseBUsingBaseA*/
framwork.require('module.BaseA');
framework.declare('module.BaseBUsingBaseA');
framework.declare('module.BaseB');
var third = function thirdFunction(){};
/*end  BaseBUsingBaseA*/
/*start AUsingBaseA*/
framwork.require('module.BaseA');
var second = function secondFunction(){};
/*end AUsingBaseA*/
/*start AUsingBaseBAndBaseA*/
framwork.require('module.BaseB');
framwork.require('module.BaseA');
framework.declare('module.UsingBaseBAndBaseA');
var forth = function fourthFunction(){};
/*end AUsingBaseBAnddBaseA*/

File based

You can enable automatic addition of files with the following example. (notice the onlyConcatRequiredFiles : true) This is the same way of declaring dependencies used by juicer

files: {
    'dist/mybuild.js': ['js/src/main.js']
},
options: {
    extractRequired: function(filepath, filecontent) {
        var workingdir = path.normalize(filepath).split(path.sep);
        workingdir.pop();

        var deps = this.getMatches(/\*\s*@depend\s(.*\.js)/g, filecontent);
        deps.forEach(function(dep, i) {
            var dependency = workingdir.concat([dep]);
            deps[i] = path.join.apply(null, dependency);
        });
        return deps;
    },
    extractDeclared: function(filepath) {
        return [filepath];
    },
    onlyConcatRequiredFiles: true
}

This will declare all files as modules using their filenames. In main.js you will typically have these depend statements:

/**
 * @depend ../lib/jquery.js
 * @depend otherfile.js
 * @depend calculator/add.js
 */

You only need to specify the main.js and the other dependencies will be added automatically. As well as their dependencies etc.

If you want to add a file that isn't referenced anywhere you need to add it manually.

files: {
    'dist/mybuild.js': ['js/src/main.js', 'js/src/unReferencedButWanted.js']
},

The option onlyConcatRequiredFiles will only work if modules are declared and required with their actual filenames.

Contributing

In lieu of a formal styleguide, take care to maintain the existing coding style. Add unit tests for any new or changed functionality. Lint and test your code using Grunt.

Release History

• 0.1.6 - @mokkabonna updated documenation and fixed path splitting in sample
• 0.1.4 - @mokkabonna added ability to concat only files that are required by some module