如何动态加载节点模块以进行Browserify转换

Question

I am working on a browserify transform that I hope will have the ability to have extensions.

//excerpt from package.json of my application that is using my transform and extension
"browserify": {
  "transform": [
    ["mytransform", {"extensions": ["my-extension"] } ]
  ]
}

In the example above, I want the user to be able to specify other node modules that are interpreted within my transform as an extension.

Within my transform code, I have the following to load the extensions:

//lines 347-349 of mytransform/index.js
var extensions = options.extensions.map(function(extensionId){
                                            return require(extensionId)();
                                          });

When I run my code, I see the following

module.js:340
    throw err;
    ^
Error: Cannot find module 'my-extension'
    at Function.Module._resolveFilename (module.js:338:15)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:280:25)
    at Module.require (module.js:364:17)
    at require (module.js:380:17)
    at /Users/pdgreen/Documents/Personal/github/mytransform/index.js:348:52
    at Array.map (native)
    at module.exports (/Users/pdgreen/Documents/Personal/github/mytransform/index.js:347:39)
    at nr (/Users/pdgreen/Documents/Personal/github/myproject/node_modules/browserify/node_modules/module-deps/index.js:231:23)
    at /Users/pdgreen/Documents/Personal/github/myproject/node_modules/browserify/node_modules/resolve/lib/async.js:48:21
    at /Users/pdgreen/Documents/Personal/github/myproject/node_modules/browserify/node_modules/resolve/lib/async.js:127:35

My extension is available to node because if I do require('my-extension') within my application, it loads without issue. It seems like the resolving code that runs for my transform is too restrictive. What am I missing?

Answer 1

It turns out my problem was related to symbolic links. Since I was still developing my transform and extension, I had created symbolic links from my application to those modules. I guess require was following the symbolic links and jumping out of my application node_modules directory so it couldn't resolve my extension. Once I learned about npm link and started using it instead of standard symbolic links, everything started working.