Question

I am beginning my first big javascript project! I had a question about deployment. I am using ajax calls to a webservice. To set this up I have a static JS file with code like:

var API_URL_ROOT = 'http://api.example.com/';

var IN_DEVELOPMENT = True;
if (IN_DEVELOPMENT) {
  API_URL_ROOT = 'http://localhost.com/api';
}

$.get(API_URL_ROOT)

I am using python/fabric to deploy. I was wondering if there were any prebuilt tools for handling the static analysis/manipulation of the javascript files., Right now it leaves toggling up to the commiters

I was planning on a deployment process like:

1. issue deploy command
2. “build” JS, by setting all values to production values (ie. IN_DEVELOPMENT = False)
3. Minify JS
4. Deploy code to production servers

I was thinking of just using sed or something to do the IN_DEVELPMENT = False replacement. I have looked at some of the popular minification tools and none seem to offer this sort of functionality.

I would assume that this is a pretty common problem for applications. How is it usually handled? Any help would be appreciated. Thank you

I recently read an article on hackernews from mozilla:

In the Mozilla Persona code base, we frequently expose difficult to
test private functions to the public interface, clearly marking the
extra functions as part of a test API. While other developers are
still able to call these private functions, the author’s intentions
are clear.

...
publicFunction: function() {
  return "publicFunction can be invoked externally but " 
             + privateFunction();
}

// BEGIN TESTING API
,
privateFunction: privateFunction
// END TESTING API
};

// privateFunction is now accessible via the TESTING API
function privateFunction() {
...

Code between the // BEGIN TESTING API and //END TESTING API
pseudo-markers can be removed for production during the build process.

So other companies are definitely doing this. Are there premade tools to facilitate the JS build proccess that can remove this code? I glanced at a number of their projects on github and didn’t see any. Thank you

Answer 1

We are using dojo

And in dojo you can use conditional exclusions for the build version of your js in order to exclude parts of your code that you would not want in your build js. Hope this helps.

eg:

var API_URL_ROOT = 'http://api.example.com/';

//>>excludeStart("dev",!pragmas.dev);
    var IN_DEVELOPMENT = True;
//>>excludeEnd("dev");

if (IN_DEVELOPMENT) {
  API_URL_ROOT = 'http://localhost.com/api';
}

$.get(API_URL_ROOT)