Transform base tasks into reusable plugins

[jackrobertscott]

In response to a tweet by one of gulps main contributors, I had the idea of creating a system that maintained single stream on which plugins could be added to manipulated given file types. The transformed files, after transformation, would then be added back to the main stream.

This would achieve the following:

• Less reading and writing by file system (gulp.src & gulp.dest), reducing processing time
• Reduce code duplication for common tasks and file transformations

The system's process cycle:

1. Load source files of all types (gulp.src)
2. Run files through plugins. Plugins would:
   1. Filter files (https://www.npmjs.com/package/gulp-filter)
   2. Pipe files through gulp plugins, transforming code
   3. Restore filtered files
3. Write files to destination (gulp.dest)

To do:

• Create a plugin handler that:
  • loads a source stream
  • applies plugins to stream
  • outputs the transformed stream to a destination

[jackrobertscott]

Example plugin:

module.exports = function cssPlugin(streamHandler) {
  return streamHandler.get('**/*.js')
    .pipe(autoprefixer())
    .pipe(csso())
    .pipe(concat('styles.css'));
}

In this example, stream handler would return the filtered segment of the main stream through the get() function. Then, when the altered files are returned, the stream handler restores the rest of the stream so the next plugin can filter from it.