Browserify - How to call function bundled in a file generated through browserify in browser

Question

I am new to nodejs and browserify. I started with this link .

I have file main.js which contains this code

var unique = require('uniq');  var data = [1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6];  this.LogData =function(){ console.log(unique(data)); }; 

Now I Install the uniq module with npm:

 npm install uniq 

Then I bundle up all the required modules starting at main.js into a single file called bundle.js with the browserify command:

browserify main.js -o bundle.js 

The generated file looks like this:

(function e(t,n,r){function s(o,u){if(!n[o]){if(!t[o]){var a=typeof require=="function"&&require;if(!u&&a)return a(o,!0);if(i)return i(o,!0);throw new Error("Cannot find module '"+o+"'")}var f=n[o]={exports:{}};t[o][0].call(f.exports,function(e){var n=t[o][1][e];return s(n?n:e)},f,f.exports,e,t,n,r)}return n[o].exports}var i=typeof require=="function"&&require;for(var o=0;o<r.length;o++)s(r[o]);return s})({1:[function(require,module,exports){ var unique = require('uniq');  var data = [1, 2, 2, 3, 4, 5, 5, 5, 6];  this.LogData =function(){ console.log(unique(data)); };  },{"uniq":2}],2:[function(require,module,exports){ "use strict"  function unique_pred(list, compare) {   var ptr = 1     , len = list.length     , a=list[0], b=list[0]   for(var i=1; i<len; ++i) {     b = a     a = list[i]     if(compare(a, b)) {       if(i === ptr) {         ptr++         continue       }       list[ptr++] = a     }   }   list.length = ptr   return list }  function unique_eq(list) {   var ptr = 1     , len = list.length     , a=list[0], b = list[0]   for(var i=1; i<len; ++i, b=a) {     b = a     a = list[i]     if(a !== b) {       if(i === ptr) {         ptr++         continue       }       list[ptr++] = a     }   }   list.length = ptr   return list }  function unique(list, compare, sorted) {   if(list.length === 0) {     return []   }   if(compare) {     if(!sorted) {       list.sort(compare)     }     return unique_pred(list, compare)   }   if(!sorted) {     list.sort()   }   return unique_eq(list) }  module.exports = unique },{}]},{},[1]) 

After including bundle.js file into my index.htm page, how do I call logData function ??

Answer 1

The key part of bundling standalone modules with Browserify is the --s option. It exposes whatever you export from your module using node's module.exports as a global variable. The file can then be included in a <script> tag.

You only need to do this if for some reason you need that global variable to be exposed. In my case the client needed a standalone module that could be included in web pages without them needing to worry about this Browserify business.

Here's an example where we use the --s option with an argument of module:

browserify index.js --s module > dist/module.js 

This will expose our module as a global variable named module.
Source.

Update: Thanks to @fotinakis. Make sure you're passing --standalone your-module-name. If you forget that --standalone takes an argument, Browserify might silently generate an empty module since it couldn't find it.

Hope this saves you some time.