46 lines
1.7 KiB
Markdown
46 lines
1.7 KiB
Markdown
# Using native Node modules
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The native Node modules are supported by Electron, but since Electron is
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using a different V8 version from official Node, you have to manually specify
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the location of Electron's headers when building native modules.
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## Native Node module compatibility
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Since Node v0.11.x there were vital changes in the V8 API. So generally all
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native modules written for Node v0.10.x wouldn't work for Node v0.11.x. And
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because Electron internally uses Node v0.11.13, it carries with the same
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problem.
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To solve this, you should use modules that support Node v0.11.x,
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[many modules](https://www.npmjs.org/browse/depended/nan) do support both now.
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For old modules that only support Node v0.10.x, you should use the
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[nan](https://github.com/rvagg/nan) module to port it to v0.11.x.
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## How to install native modules
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### The node-gyp way
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To build Node modules with headers of Electron, you need to tell `node-gyp`
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where to download headers and which version to use:
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```bash
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$ cd /path-to-module/
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$ HOME=~/.electron-gyp node-gyp rebuild --target=0.16.0 --arch=ia32 --dist-url=https://atom.io/download/atom-shell
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```
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The `HOME=~/.electron-gyp` changes where to find development headers. The
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`--target=0.16.0` is version of Electron. The `--dist-url=...` specifies
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where to download the headers. The `--arch=ia32` says the module is built for
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32bit system.
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### The npm way
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You can also use `npm` to install modules, the steps are exactly the same with
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Node modules, except that you need to setup some environment variables:
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```bash
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export npm_config_disturl=https://atom.io/download/atom-shell
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export npm_config_target=0.23.0
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export npm_config_arch=x64
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HOME=~/.electron-gyp npm install module-name
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```
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