How does require() in node.js work?

Question

I tried this:

// mod.js
var a = 1;
this.b = 2;
exports.c = 3;

// test.js
var mod = require('./mod.js');
console.log(mod.a);    // undefined
console.log(mod.b);    // 2
console.log(mod.c);    // 3, so this === exports?

So I image that require() may be implement like this:

var require = function (file) {
    var exports = {};
    var run = function (file) {
        // include "file" here and run
    };
    run.apply(exports, [file]);
    return exports;
}

Is that right? Please help me to understand require(), or where can I find the source code. Thanks!

Answer 1

Source code is here. exports/require are not keywords, but global variables. Your main script is wrapped before start in a function which has all the globals like require, process etc in its context.

Note that while module.js itself is using require(), that's a different require function, and it is defined in the file called "node.js"

Side effect of above: it's perfectly fine to have "return" statement in the middle of your module (not belonging to any function), effectively "commenting out" rest of the code