This package implements a number of CommonJS proposals on top of Node.js using node-fibers. Fibers are used to emulate multi-threading within a single process, allowing one to use a synchronous programming style and as a result:
- write fast CRUD webapps that run on Node.js without messy callbacks
- run webapps, middleware and libraries written for RingoJS, Narwhal, Akshell, Erbix, Wakanda, v8cgi and other implementations
- mix & match synchronous/asynchronous styles and use the best tool for the job by writing maintainable business logic in a synchronous manner
- write concise, legible shell scripts
The following modules are included:
- assert - Unit Testing/1.0 (available in Node) & a suite for running tests
- console - Console - partial implementation available in Node
- system - System/1.0
- binary - Binary/B
- io - IO/A, including a
ByteArraybackedMemoryStream - fs - Filesystem/A
- jsgi - JSGI 0.3
- httpclient - HTTP Client/A
- subprocess - methods for launching subprocesses modeled after Ringo (work in progress)
- socket - Sockets/A (work in progress)
If you don't already have them, install Node version 0.5.2 or later (for Node 0.4.X check out the v0.4 branch of Common Node) and Node Package Manager. Install common-node as a global package:
sudo npm -g install common-node
Run the "Hello World" example:
common-node $NODE_PATH/common-node/examples/hello.js
You shouldn't see any output. To test that it's working, make an HTTP request from another prompt:
curl http://localhost:8080/
A number of examples are available in common-node/examples:
hello.js- Hello World webapp using JSGI to return a simple text responsestatic.js- streams a static file as a responsehttp.js- makes an HTTP request to another server and returns the result in the responsesleep.js- sleeps for one second before returning a responsespawn.js- spawns a new fiber which prints to stdout ten seconds after processing a requesttwitter.js- an example of using Twitter's streaming API, uses HttpClient & TextStream for reading one line at a time
For more usage examples, please refer to the tests in the common-node/test directory.
The API reference is available at http://olegp.github.com/common-node/doc/
To generate the documentation, install RingoJS and run:
ringo-doc -n "Common Node" -s ./lib -d ./doc --file-urls
To run the unit tests run:
node test/all.js
You can also run individual tests or sets of tests, for example:
node test/io.js
node test/fs-base/all.js
Although common-node is optimized for development efficiency rather than performance,
a number of benchmarks are included in common-node/benchmarks.
A common-node version, an asynchronous Node version using Connect & a RingoJS version of each benchmark is provided.
The scripts are based on the Ringo/Node benchmark scripts, with a couple of additions.
The benchmarks have the following dependencies:
connectfor Node which can be installed via npmringowhich can be installed by following the instructions in the RingoJS repositoryab- installed withsudo apt-get install apache2-utilson Debian/Ubuntugnuplot- installed withsudo apt-get install gnuplot-nox
To run them and generate graphs, execute the following command:
cd benchmarks/; ./run; ./graph
This will generate PNG images of the graphs in benchmarks/results/graphs/. Some results are provided below:
- buffer-alloc - creates a number of byte arrays per request; the difference in performance compared to Node is due to the array being cleared
- hello-world - returns a dynamically generated string
- no-alloc
- parse-json
- set-timeout - sleep for 100ms before returning a response
- static-file - returns a file served from the file system
- string-alloc
As you can see from the results and given no profiling or optimization work has been done so far, there's room for improvement. Any patches or suggestions on how to improve performance would be greatly appreciated.
To use the package in your existing app, you will need to:
- run your app with
nodeinstead ofcommon-node - change the way in which you require modules from
var io = require('io');tovar io = require('common-node').io;or update your NODE_PATH to includecommon-node/lib(seebin/common-nodefor an example)
For example the following modified version of examples/http.js can be run directly via node http.js
var HttpClient = require('common-node').httpclient.HttpClient;
exports.app = function(request) {
return {
status: 200,
headers: {},
body: new HttpClient({
url: 'http://google.com'
}).finish().body
};
};
if(require.main == module) {
require('common-node').run(exports);
}
To contribute to this project, you can start by trying to run the tests on your system and posting your results (even if all tests pass) on the issue tracker.
If you run into any issues along the way, whether related to using this library in your own project or to the documentation, please post your comments on the issue tracker. The tracker is also a great place to contribute ideas and find out what needs doing.
If you're coming from Ringo or Narwhal, please try running the tests for some of your existing packages. If the tests pass and the packages is compatible with Common Node, feel free to add it to the wiki.
To find specific issues not listed on the tracker, you can run the following command from inside the common-node directory.
grep 'TODO' lib/*
To contribute code: fork the project, make and commit your changes and send a pull request.
A number of higher level goals, such as descriptions of packages that would complement Common Node are listed on the TODO wiki page.
- Hannes Wallnoefer and others from RingoJS - this project uses a number of its tests & the Ringo code was used as a starting point for some modules
- Kris Kowal, Tom Robinson, Isaac Schlueter for Narwhal - this project used a number of its modules as a starting point and some methods in e.g. Binary have been copied as is
- everybody on the CommonJS mailing list
(The MIT License)
Copyright (c) 2011 Oleg Podsechin
Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the 'Software'), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions:
The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software.
THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED 'AS IS', WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.