blackbox's Introduction

blackbox

Put data in; take data out; same data across child processes or networks with dnode.

Documentation

Install the module with: npm install blackbox

var blackbox = require('blackbox');

// Save some stuff
blackbox('stuff', {beep: 'boop'}, function() {
  console.log('saved your stuff.');
});

// Spawn some child process
var spawn = require('child_process').spawn;
spawn('node', ['child_script.js']);

Meanwhile inside the spawned child_script.js:

var blackbox = require('blackbox');

// Get your stuff
blackbox('stuff', function(err, data) {
  console.log('here is your stuff:');
  console.log(data);
  // data === { beep: 'boop' }
});

Or set a different port or host:

var blackbox = require('blackbox');

blackbox.port = 9001;
blackbox.host = 'example.com';

(function runAgain() {
  // Does stuff exist?
  blackbox('stuff', function(err, data) {
    if (!data) {
    	// Nope lets create it
      blackbox('stuff', {beep: 'boop'}, runAgain);
    } else {
      console.log('here is your stuff:');
      console.log(data);
      // data === { beep: 'boop' }
    }
  });
}());

Why?

grunt-contrib-watch spawns tasks as child processes. This fixed a lot of issues. But then tasks could no longer persist or share data across tasks as the watch ran them.

One day in IRC, @cowboy suggested creating a pubsub lib so tasks could persist data and recommended dnode. Thus this lib was created.

This lib probably already exists but I couldn't find one and this was fun to create.

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.