This simple node application will wrap a JavaScript library written using AMD and compressed using r.js into a configurable namespace

Imagine you have a compressed JavaScript library, named library1.js, defining the Foo and Bar modules; you would use it like this:

<script src="require.js"></script>
<script src="library1.js"></script>
<script>
  require(["Foo","Bar"],
  function(Foo,Bar) {
    //do stuff
  });
</script>

Now you want introduce a new functionality from library2.js. Unfortunately this library also defines two modules named Foo and Bar. The following code will obviously not work:

<script src="require.js"></script>
<script src="library1.js"></script>
<script src="library2.js"></script>
<script>
  require(["Foo","Bar","Foo","Bar"],
  function(Foo,Bar,Foo,Bar) {
    //do stuff
  });
</script>

The solution would be to be able to refer to the modules of library1.js as library1/Foo and library1/Bar while referring to the modules of library2 using library2/Foo and library2/Bar

<script src="require.js"></script>
<script src="library1.js"></script>
<script src="library2.js"></script>
<script>
  require(["library1/Foo","library1/Bar","library2/Foo","library2/Bar"],
  function(Foo1,Bar1,Foo2,Bar2) {
    //do stuff
  });
</script>

The process requires node.js to run, be sure to have it installed on your machine.

Install the requirejs module using npm:

npm install requirejs

run the wrapper

node namespace-wrapper.js NAMESPACE ORIGINAL_LIBRARY_FILE TARGET_WRAPPED_LIBRARY_FILE

TARGET_WRAPPED_LIBRARY_FILE will contain the namespaced library.

I wrote the wrapper with a specific need in mind so that some feautures that were not needed were not taken into account. Here are its current (main) shortcomings:

• The library to be wrapped MUST never use the require method inside it but only the define one
• The library to be wrapped CAN only refer to other modules defined inside itself. If reference to a second library are contained the second library must be wrapped with the same namespace.