Feature request: Env Var NODE_REQUIRE

[jchip]

• Version: 4.x.x, 6.x.x, 7.x.x
• Platform: All
• Subsystem:

I am requesting for something that's basically the command line option -r but through an environment variable NODE_REQUIRE. The reason is that the -r option is not persistent. If some other app invokes node, then the -r is not applied. The environment variable NODE_REQUIRE should always be checked when node starts up.

When the env var exist and -r is also specified, I think both should be required.

Thanks.

[cjihrig]

Seems like preloading multiple modules via environment variable might be a bit of a pain if the list delimiter was part of a file path to a local module. For example, node -r ./,.js is valid, but would be a pain to parse if the delimiter was a comma.

[jchip]

I think that NODE_REQUIRE would only refer to a single module. Does -r let you specify multiple with a delimiter? My impression from the doc is that you can repeat -r to load multiple, but I think that's really not necessary for the env option. Or possibly NODE_REQUIRE_nnn?

[cjihrig]

You can preload multiple modules by passing multiple -rs from the command line. People would probably expect to be able to do something similar with an environment variable.

[jchip]

ok. I'd go with checking NODE_REQUIRE, and then NODE_REQUIRE_1, NODE_REQUIRE_2, etc.

[jchip]

or go with the convention use for NODE_PATH?

[cjihrig]

Yea, I suppose using : or ; depending on the OS could work.