使用全局包打包nodejs应用程序

Question

We have a project which have to be packaged as a zip so we can distribute it to our cliens. With the normal node_modules directory i have no problems. I just put the directory and the node.exe together in my project folder and can start our project on every other computer without installing node or running any npm command.

But now i have a dependecy on phantomjs which needs to be installed as a global package npm install -g phantomjs .

How do i pack modules like this into our project? I first thought of copying phantomjs into the local node_modules directory and set the path variable NODE_PATH to this directory. It doesn't find phantomjs.

Development and client platforms are both windows.

Answer 1

Well, generally it is fine to install global dependencies with the --save flag and call their bins like ./node_modules/phantomjs/bin/phantomjs /*now executes*/ (just as an illustrative example).

However, with with Phantom it's not that simple, since it's downloading binaries and/or even compiling. You would have three options:

1. ssh into target and just npm install -g phantomjs before or define it in a manifest eg Dockerfile just like that, if you are using containers.
2. Compile it from source as advised here .
3. If you are using the CLI, then just the --save approach.

So I hardly advise just making a Docker image out of it and ship it as tarball. You can't zip the platform dependent Phantom installation, unfortunately.

Also lots of dependencies like karma-runner-phantomjs look for the path of the global dependencies to resolve it for their use.