An NPM wrapper for PhantomJS version 2, headless webkit with JS API.

NOTE: phantomjs v2.x is currently under heavy development. Releases should be considered unstable.

This is a fork from Medium/phantomjs which beautifully installs phantomjs v1.9.x.

npm install phantomjs2-ext

Or grab the source and

node ./install.js

What this installer is really doing is just grabbing a particular "blessed" (by this module) version of Phantom. As new versions of Phantom are released and vetted, this module will be updated accordingly.

The package has been set up to fetch and run Phantom for MacOS (darwin) and Linux based platforms (as identified by nodejs), using the pre-built binaries from https://github.com/bprodoehl/phantomjs/releases/

However it is possible to provide a custom download URl by setting the PHANTOMJS2_DOWNLOAD_URL environment variable.

bin/phantomjs [phantom arguments]

And npm will install a link to the binary in node_modules/.bin as it is wont to do.

The package exports a path string that contains the path to the phantomjs binary/executable.

Below is an example of using this package via node.

var path = require('path')
var childProcess = require('child_process')
var phantomjs = require('phantomjs')
var binPath = phantomjs.path

var childArgs = [
  path.join(__dirname, 'phantomjs-script.js'),
  'some other argument (passed to phantomjs script)'
]

childProcess.execFile(binPath, childArgs, function(err, stdout, stderr) {
  // handle results
})

The major and minor number tracks the version of PhantomJS that will be installed. The patch number is incremented when there is either an installer update or a patch build of the phantom binary.

PhantomJS is not a library for NodeJS. It's a separate environment and code written for node is unlikely to be compatible. In particular PhantomJS does not expose a Common JS package loader.

This is an NPM wrapper and can be used to conveniently make Phantom available It is not a Node JS wrapper.

I have had reasonable experiences writing standalone Phantom scripts which I then drive from within a node program by spawning phantom in a child process.

Read the PhantomJS FAQ for more details: http://phantomjs.org/faq.html

An extra note on Linux usage, from the PhantomJS download page:

This package is built on CentOS 5.8. It should run successfully on Lucid or more modern systems (including other distributions). There is no requirement to install Qt, WebKit, or any other libraries. It is however expected that some base libraries necessary for rendering (FreeType, Fontconfig) and the basic font files are available in the system.

This error means that something went wront with your internet connection, and the installer was not able to download the PhantomJS binary for your platform. Please try again.

Do you live in China, or a country with an authoritarian government? We've seen problems where the GFW or local ISP blocks bitbucket, preventing the installer from downloading the binary.

Try visiting the the download page manually. If that page is blocked, you can try using a different CDN with the PHANTOMJS_CDNURL env variable described above.

You can tell NPM and the PhantomJS installer to skip validation of ssl keys with NPM'sstrict-ssl setting:

npm set strict-ssl false

WARNING: Turning off strict-ssl leaves you vulnerable to attackers reading your encrypted traffic, so run this at your own risk!

If you install PhantomJS manually, and put it on PATH, the installer will try to use the manually-installed binaries.

Some Linux distros tried to rename node to nodejs due to a package conflict. This is a non-portable change, and we do not try to support this. Theofficial documentation recommends that you symlink node to nodejs on those platforms, or many NodeJS programs won't work properly.

Questions, comments, bug reports, and pull requests are all welcome. Submit them atthe project on GitHub.

Bug reports that include steps-to-reproduce (including code) are the best. Even better, make them in the form of pull requests.

Dan Pupius (personal website), supported byThe Obvious Corporation.

Ported to phantomjs2 by zeevl

Copyright 2012 The Obvious Corporation.

Licensed under the Apache License, Version 2.0. See the top-level file LICENSE.txt and (http://www.apache.org/licenses/LICENSE-2.0).