Use RequireJS config file as the build file?

Question

I've got some paths configured in require-config.js as follows:

var require = {
    baseUrl: '/javascript',
    paths: {
        'jquery': 'jquery/jquery-1.8.1.min'
        // etc. -- several paths to vendor files here
    },
}

I am trying to get the optimization working for deployment. The docs say I should have a build.js that looks something like this:

({
    baseUrl: 'javascript',
    paths: {
        'jquery': 'jquery/jquery-1.8.1.min'
    },
    name: 'main',
    out: 'main-build.js'
})

Is there a way to have the optimizer read my config file instead of (or in addition to) build.js? I don't want to have to manually keep the paths configured the same in both files if they change.

I tried to just run node r.js -o path/to/require-config.js, but it threw an error, "malformed: SyntaxError: Unexpected token var"

Edit: for clarification, my require-config.js file is the config only, not my main module. I did this so I could use the same configuration but load a different main module when unit testing.

Answer 1

You'll need to adjust the way your config options are defined. Taken from the RequireJS documentation:

In version 1.0.5+ of the optimizer, the mainConfigFile option can be used to specify the location of the runtime config. If specified with the path to your main JS file, the first requirejs({}), requirejs.config({}), require({}), or require.config({}) found in that file will be parsed out and used as part of the configuration options passed to the optimizer:

So basically you can point your r.js build file to your config options that will also be shared with the browser.

You will need to make use of the mainConfigFile option

Answer 2

For other's reference:

https://github.com/jrburke/r.js/blob/master/build/example.build.js

The build settings (no need to repeat your config.js lib inclusions here):

baseUrl: 'app',
name: 'assets/js/lib/almond', // or require

// Read config and then also build it into the app
mainConfigFile: 'app/config.js',
include: ['config'],

// Needed for almond (and does no harm for require)
wrap: true,