support fs.readdir and fs.readdirSync

I think this is feasible, and I personally think this is really useful.

In node.js it’s reasonably common for me to do things like:

// controllers/index.js
'use strict';
var fs = require('fs');
var path = require('path');

var ROOT_PATH = __dirname;

module.exports = function(path) {
  var fnames = fs.readdirSync(ROOT_PATH);

  var paths = fnames.map(function(fname) {
    return path.join(ROOT_PATH, fname, '.js');
  });

  var modules = paths.map(function(path) {
    return require(path);
  });

  return modules.map(function(module) {
    // do something with the module
    // i.e. if it's this is a mongoose schema bootstrapping utility, register the model.
    //       if this is a express controller bootstrapping utility, parse its methods and register
   //        matching routes.
   //        etc.
  });
};

This allows us to abstract whole parts of the code, later on - even treat them as completely separate modules:

// app.js
var controllers = require('./controllers')

// bootstrap the controllers
controllers(/* something would come here such as an express app or a mongoose.Connection */);

If we could do this with browserify, things like bootstrapping an Ember app, could be automated. I know there are a couple of problems.

Here’s an analogous example that works, though not exactly as one would hope it’d.

I know this has to do with limitations on the browserify module (which may be impossible to address) but this would be really cool.

Perhaps we could even parse things like:

['./a', './b'].map(function(name) {
  return require(name);
});

Into:

[require('./a'), require('./b')];

Or provide an utility requireMap thing that resolved into that.

I don’t know if this is a relevant issue. But I though this would be a nice thing, if it was possible.

At it’s core, the main point was simply to add:

var fs = require('fs');
var files = fs.readdirSync('.');

To be transformed into:

var fs = require('fs');
var files = ['a.js', 'b.js', 'main.js' /* etc. */];

What do you think?

[callumlocke]

it would be cool if there was some way this could work:

var fs = require('fs');

var templates = {};

fs.readdirSync(__dirname + '/../templates').forEach(function (filename) {
  templates[filename] = fs.readFileSync(__dirname + '/../templates/' + filename, 'utf-8');
});

[cancerberoSgx]

@callumlocke finally made it and working fine! https://github.com/cancerberoSgx/br-fs-to-json packing a glob of files is what I always wanted and since you will be requiring a “strange” library fs-to-json I make sure it doesn’t contaminate your project with its dependencies. Much more practical than brfs IMO