Is there a NPM importer?

Is there a NPM importer?

[divoplade]

Hello Guix users :)

Browsing through the web, I found a few discussions about an NPM
importer.

Nov 2018: https://www.mail-archive.com/guix-devel@gnu.org/msg44700.html

Mar 2017: 
https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2017-03/msg00814.html

What is the status of this?

Re: Is there a NPM importer?

[Julien Lepiller]

Le 18 mai 2020 15:00:26 GMT-04:00, divoplade <d@divoplade.fr> a écrit :
>Hello Guix users :)
>
>Browsing through the web, I found a few discussions about an NPM
>importer.
>
>Nov 2018: https://www.mail-archive.com/guix-devel@gnu.org/msg44700.html
>
>Mar 2017: 
>https://lists.gnu.org/archive/html/guix-devel/2017-03/msg00814.html
>
>What is the status of this?

When considering build-time dependencies, there are many cycles that makes an importer almost impossible to create. There is some code that works (at least it used to work) when you don't need a recursive import, but it would be useless because most packages require thousands of packages at build time.

I haven't been working on this since quite some time, and I don't think I'm going to take that time soon. If anyone is interested, I still think we need to build a backtracking startegy in our importer infrastructure (we could have a constraint solver do the job, but we would need complete information about the npm repo. We can only look up package by package) and import a minimal path, taking version constraints into account. Basically, backtrack on loops.

Re: Is there a NPM importer?

[divoplade]

Le lundi 18 mai 2020 à 16:21 -0400, Julien Lepiller a écrit :
> When considering build-time dependencies, there are many cycles that
> makes an importer almost impossible to create. There is some code
> that works (at least it used to work) when you don't need a recursive
> import, but it would be useless because most packages require
> thousands of packages at build time.
I am trying to know if it would be feasible to package rdflib and
solid-auth-client. Debian has managed to do some work about it 
https://wiki.debian.org/Javascript/Nodejs/Tasks/rdflib, I don't know
how good it is.

When I pull them, npm says it 'added 144 packages'.

I am not an expert in npm, but if I install whatever is under
node_modules, I reach a convergence at 194 packages.

I am not sure how to count the build packages, but I like the idea of
discarding tests and minifiers. Maybe that would help.

So, is the framagit version the latest work? 

Re: Is there a NPM importer?

[Julien Lepiller]

Le 18 mai 2020 16:48:24 GMT-04:00, divoplade <d@divoplade.fr> a écrit :
>Le lundi 18 mai 2020 à 16:21 -0400, Julien Lepiller a écrit :
>> When considering build-time dependencies, there are many cycles that
>> makes an importer almost impossible to create. There is some code
>> that works (at least it used to work) when you don't need a recursive
>> import, but it would be useless because most packages require
>> thousands of packages at build time.
>I am trying to know if it would be feasible to package rdflib and
>solid-auth-client. Debian has managed to do some work about it 
>https://wiki.debian.org/Javascript/Nodejs/Tasks/rdflib, I don't know
>how good it is.
>
>When I pull them, npm says it 'added 144 packages'.
>
>I am not an expert in npm, but if I install whatever is under
>node_modules, I reach a convergence at 194 packages.
>
>I am not sure how to count the build packages, but I like the idea of
>discarding tests and minifiers. Maybe that would help.
>
>So, is the framagit version the latest work? 

194 is only the count for runtime packages. We might be lucky and no other package might be needed.

The framagit version is my latest work, but I think there is more recent work elsewhere. I don't remember where exactly though.

Re: Is there a NPM importer?

[divoplade]

Hello,

Le lundi 18 mai 2020 à 17:00 -0400, Julien Lepiller a écrit :
> We might be lucky and no other package might be needed.

Now I understand the problem.

Best regards