Docs on publishing of header-only C++ libs (include in node c++ modules)

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Assessment

Difficulty
4/5
Estimated time
3-5 days
Newbie friendliness
35/100
Issue type
Feature
Clarity
Mostly clear
Activity status
Stale
Tech stack
cpp, nodejs
Domain
release, tooling

Research direction

Locate the header-only C++ libraries in this repository and compare Nan's package.json and include_dirs.js pattern with the linked examples. Add the requested package metadata for each library, then run npm pack and inspect the tarball to confirm it contains the headers and npm's default files only.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Description

rational

We are increasingly working on small node C++ modules that depend on header-only C++ libs.
Node.js's Nan module has pioneered a best practice for how to include header only C++ libs in node C++ addons by simply adding a package.json and include_dirs.js file to the root of the project. I think we should follow the lead of howNan does this and package all our C++ header only libs in npm as well as mason. I think publishing in two places is worth it because it makes including the libraries from node modules very easy and consistent with how JS modules work.

method

Add:

  • package.json
  • include_dirs.js
  • files parameter to package.json so that only the include/ directory is included

Example:

{
    "name": "@mapbox/geometry-hpp",
    "version": "0.9.0",
    "description": "A C++ header only geometry type library",
    "main": "./include_dirs.js",
    "repository"   :  {
      "type" : "git",
      "url"  : "git://github.com/mapbox/geometry.hpp.git"
    },
    "files": [
         "include"
    ]
}

Then test that only the right files are going to be packaged:

npm pack
tar -ztvf *tgz

^^ that should list just the headers and the default files npm includes like README.md and package.json etc

Examples:

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