readme.md

A cumulative learning of building NodeJs addons written in C/C++.

Note: Node has deprecated Nan in favor of N-API -- relevant docs

========= Using node-gyp ==========

To run an application:

1. cd to the program's directory (e.g. MathAddon)

2. Run node-gyp configure

3. Run node-gyp build

4. Run node __main.js_file__ to execute the program, e.g. node index.js

========== Using Nan and CMake ==========

CMake and Nan is a viable combination for creating NodeJs addons. IntelliJ's CLion IDE supports CMake.

-- Install cmake-js:

 npm install cmake-js

-- Basic project structure:

When creating a project in IntelliJ's CLion, a CMakeLists.txt file will be automatically generated.

The CMakeLists.txt file is CMake's version of node-gyp's binding.gyp file.

An example CMakeLists.txt file:

cmake_minimum_required(VERSION 3.5)

# name of project, will be name of plugin
project(Peripherals)

# build shared library named after the project from files in 'src/' dir
file(GLOB SOURCE_FILES "src/*.cpp" "src/*.h")
add_library(${PROJECT_NAME} SHARED ${SOURCE_FILES})

# needed to resolve nan.h library
include_directories(${CMAKE_JS_INC} ../nan)

# give library file a .node extension without any "lib" prefix
set_target_properties(${PROJECT_NAME} PROPERTIES PREFIX "" SUFFIX ".node")

# essential include files to build a node addon,
# should add this line in every CMake.js based project
target_include_directories(${PROJECT_NAME} PRIVATE ${CMAKE_JS_INC})

# essential library files to link to a node addon
# add this line to every CMake.js based project
target_link_libraries(${PROJECT_NAME} ${CMAKE_JS_LIB}) ```