unable to require jQuery-csv from node

[GoogleCodeExporter]

What steps will reproduce the problem?
1. npm install jQuery
2. in node
 - var $ = require('jQuery');
 - var jcsv = require('./jquery.csv.js');

I was getting 

ReferenceError: jQuery is not defined

Whenever I tried this. Some instructions on using this plugin with node would 
be useful. I figured out that I need to do:

//fake browser window
global.window = require("jsdom").jsdom().createWindow();
global.jQuery = require("jquery");
jcsv = require('jquery.csv.js');

jQuery.csv2Dictionary(stuff); // note that the methods get attached to jQuery, 
not jcsv

Original issue reported on code.google.com by SpencerR...@gmail.com on 27 Sep 2012 at 2:37

[GoogleCodeExporter]

I honestly have very little experience with Node.js so it will take me a while 
to get a dev environment setup to to play with this.

I think your problem comes from the way you're calling require. Because jQuery 
and jquery-csv assume that they're going to be imported into a global namespace 
by default they take care of the assignment on their own.

If you look at the source, all of the jquery-csv code is contained within an 
anonymous function closure that is assigned to both the jQuery parameter as 
well as the $ variable no matter how you call it.

Take a look at http://docs.jquery.com/Plugins/Authoring to see how it works.

Basically, I don't think you need to assign jquery-csv to a variable because it 
should automatically attach to the jquery namespace.

Try this:
  var $ = require(jquery);
  require('jquery.csv.js');

Both should be callable through the jQuery or the $ variables.

Try it out to see if it works. If not, I'll get a node env setup as soon as I 
have the time to get a working implementation established.

The key is, if this gets documented as a use case for jquery-csv it needs to 
work with the client-side documentation/guides as closely as possible.

Original comment by evanpla...@gmail.com on 1 Oct 2012 at 10:53

[GoogleCodeExporter]

OK, after further exploration and testing I have a definitive answer.

*Here's how you import jquery-csv:*

    var $ = jQuery = require('jquery');
    require('./jquery.csv.js');

Basically, calling require() without assigning it runs it in the global 
namespace the same as importing via a <script> tag does in the browser.

In the browser jQuery is callable via '$' but is actually assigned to the 
'jQuery' variable; that's why both assignments are necessary.

If you want to try it out here's the example code I used for testing:
    var fs = require('fs');
    var $ = jQuery = require('jquery');
    require('./jquery.csv.js');

    var file = './example.csv';
    fs.readFile(file, 'UTF-8', function(err, csv) {
      var data = $.csv.toArrays(csv);
      for(var i=0, len=data.length; i<len; i++) {
        console.log(data[i]);
      }
    });

_Note: You'll need to provide your own example.csv file and put it in the same 
directory as jquery/jquery-csv but it should work._

What it does is read in a csv file, converts it to a 2D array, and outputs the 
data to the console.

If you want to see how the object transform works, provide headers in the first 
line of the CSV file and call $.csv.toObjects(csv) instead.

I haven't added any demo's to the project yet but when I do I'll be sure to add 
this.

Original comment by evanpla...@gmail.com on 3 Oct 2012 at 11:13

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Original comment by evanpla...@gmail.com on 3 Oct 2012 at 11:14

• Changed state: Done

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Thanks for fixing this. I moved on to using the node-csv-parser though, since 
its API fits my use case better.

Link here:
https://github.com/wdavidw/node-csv-parser

Original comment by SpencerR...@gmail.com on 4 Oct 2012 at 12:20

[GoogleCodeExporter]

No problem...

Now that I have a Node.js environment up and running I'm going to see if I can 
add some solid callback support to make it work in a manner familiar to most 
Node programmers.

Node isn't really something I have considered up until you submitted this 
issue. I think it'll be interesting to add a demo showing how to implement a 
100% JS CSV SaaS (ie client/server) module.

Thank you for your feedback.

Original comment by evanpla...@gmail.com on 4 Oct 2012 at 10:17

[GoogleCodeExporter]

Original comment by evanpla...@gmail.com on 11 Oct 2012 at 4:08