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## Addons
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Addons are dynamically linked shared objects. They can provide glue to C and
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C++ libraries. The API (at the moment) is rather complex, involving
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knowledge of several libraries:
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- V8 JavaScript, a C++ library. Used for interfacing with JavaScript:
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creating objects, calling functions, etc. Documented mostly in the
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`v8.h` header file (`deps/v8/include/v8.h` in the Node source tree).
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- [libuv](https://github.com/joyent/libuv), C event loop library. Anytime one
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needs to wait for a file descriptor to become readable, wait for a timer, or
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wait for a signal to received one will need to interface with libuv. That is,
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if you perform any I/O, libuv will need to be used.
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- Internal Node libraries. Most importantly is the `node::ObjectWrap`
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class which you will likely want to derive from.
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- Others. Look in `deps/` for what else is available.
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Node statically compiles all its dependencies into the executable. When
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compiling your module, you don't need to worry about linking to any of these
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libraries.
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To get started let's make a small Addon which is the C++ equivalent of
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the following Javascript code:
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exports.hello = function() { return 'world'; };
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To get started we create a file `hello.cc`:
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#include <node.h>
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#include <v8.h>
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using namespace v8;
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Handle<Value> Method(const Arguments& args) {
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HandleScope scope;
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return scope.Close(String::New("world"));
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}
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void init(Handle<Object> target) {
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NODE_SET_METHOD(target, "hello", Method);
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}
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NODE_MODULE(hello, init)
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Note that all Node addons must export an initialization function:
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void Initialize (Handle<Object> target);
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NODE_MODULE(module_name, Initialize)
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There is no semi-colon after `NODE_MODULE` as it's not a function (see `node.h`).
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The source code needs to be built into `hello.node`, the binary Addon. To
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do this we create a file called `wscript` which is python code and looks
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like this:
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srcdir = '.'
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blddir = 'build'
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VERSION = '0.0.1'
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def set_options(opt):
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opt.tool_options('compiler_cxx')
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def configure(conf):
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conf.check_tool('compiler_cxx')
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conf.check_tool('node_addon')
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def build(bld):
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obj = bld.new_task_gen('cxx', 'shlib', 'node_addon')
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obj.target = 'hello'
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obj.source = 'hello.cc'
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Running `node-waf configure build` will create a file
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`build/default/hello.node` which is our Addon.
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`node-waf` is just [WAF](http://code.google.com/p/waf), the python-based build system. `node-waf` is
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provided for the ease of users.
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You can now use the binary addon in a Node project `hello.js` by pointing `require` to
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the recently built module:
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var addon = require('./build/Release/hello');
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console.log(addon.hello()); // 'world'
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For the moment, that is all the documentation on addons. Please see
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<https://github.com/ry/node_postgres> for a real example.
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