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Module - vm - Node documentation
class Module
Unstable

Usage in Deno

import { Module } from "node:vm";

This feature is only available with the --experimental-vm-modules command flag enabled.

The vm.Module class provides a low-level interface for using ECMAScript modules in VM contexts. It is the counterpart of the vm.Script class that closely mirrors Module Record s as defined in the ECMAScript specification.

Unlike vm.Script however, every vm.Module object is bound to a context from its creation. Operations on vm.Module objects are intrinsically asynchronous, in contrast with the synchronous nature of vm.Script objects. The use of 'async' functions can help with manipulating vm.Module objects.

Using a vm.Module object requires three distinct steps: creation/parsing, linking, and evaluation. These three steps are illustrated in the following example.

This implementation lies at a lower level than the ECMAScript Module loader. There is also no way to interact with the Loader yet, though support is planned.

import vm from 'node:vm';

const contextifiedObject = vm.createContext({
  secret: 42,
  print: console.log,
});

// Step 1
//
// Create a Module by constructing a new `vm.SourceTextModule` object. This
// parses the provided source text, throwing a `SyntaxError` if anything goes
// wrong. By default, a Module is created in the top context. But here, we
// specify `contextifiedObject` as the context this Module belongs to.
//
// Here, we attempt to obtain the default export from the module "foo", and
// put it into local binding "secret".

const bar = new vm.SourceTextModule(`
  import s from 'foo';
  s;
  print(s);
`, { context: contextifiedObject });

// Step 2
//
// "Link" the imported dependencies of this Module to it.
//
// The provided linking callback (the "linker") accepts two arguments: the
// parent module (`bar` in this case) and the string that is the specifier of
// the imported module. The callback is expected to return a Module that
// corresponds to the provided specifier, with certain requirements documented
// in `module.link()`.
//
// If linking has not started for the returned Module, the same linker
// callback will be called on the returned Module.
//
// Even top-level Modules without dependencies must be explicitly linked. The
// callback provided would never be called, however.
//
// The link() method returns a Promise that will be resolved when all the
// Promises returned by the linker resolve.
//
// Note: This is a contrived example in that the linker function creates a new
// "foo" module every time it is called. In a full-fledged module system, a
// cache would probably be used to avoid duplicated modules.

async function linker(specifier, referencingModule) {
  if (specifier === 'foo') {
    return new vm.SourceTextModule(`
      // The "secret" variable refers to the global variable we added to
      // "contextifiedObject" when creating the context.
      export default secret;
    `, { context: referencingModule.context });

    // Using `contextifiedObject` instead of `referencingModule.context`
    // here would work as well.
  }
  throw new Error(`Unable to resolve dependency: ${specifier}`);
}
await bar.link(linker);

// Step 3
//
// Evaluate the Module. The evaluate() method returns a promise which will
// resolve after the module has finished evaluating.

// Prints 42.
await bar.evaluate();

Properties

dependencySpecifiers: readonly string[]

The specifiers of all dependencies of this module. The returned array is frozen to disallow any changes to it.

Corresponds to the [[RequestedModules]] field of Cyclic Module Record s in the ECMAScript specification.

error: any

If the module.status is 'errored', this property contains the exception thrown by the module during evaluation. If the status is anything else, accessing this property will result in a thrown exception.

The value undefined cannot be used for cases where there is not a thrown exception due to possible ambiguity with throw undefined;.

Corresponds to the [[EvaluationError]] field of Cyclic Module Record s in the ECMAScript specification.

identifier: string

The identifier of the current module, as set in the constructor.

namespace: Object

The namespace object of the module. This is only available after linking (module.link()) has completed.

Corresponds to the GetModuleNamespace abstract operation in the ECMAScript specification.

The current status of the module. Will be one of:

  • 'unlinked': module.link() has not yet been called.
  • 'linking': module.link() has been called, but not all Promises returned by the linker function have been resolved yet.
  • 'linked': The module has been linked successfully, and all of its dependencies are linked, but module.evaluate() has not yet been called.
  • 'evaluating': The module is being evaluated through a module.evaluate() on itself or a parent module.
  • 'evaluated': The module has been successfully evaluated.
  • 'errored': The module has been evaluated, but an exception was thrown.

Other than 'errored', this status string corresponds to the specification's Cyclic Module Record's [[Status]] field. 'errored' corresponds to 'evaluated' in the specification, but with [[EvaluationError]] set to a value that is not undefined.

Methods

evaluate(options?: ModuleEvaluateOptions): Promise<void>

Evaluate the module.

This must be called after the module has been linked; otherwise it will reject. It could be called also when the module has already been evaluated, in which case it will either do nothing if the initial evaluation ended in success (module.status is 'evaluated') or it will re-throw the exception that the initial evaluation resulted in (module.status is 'errored').

This method cannot be called while the module is being evaluated (module.status is 'evaluating').

Corresponds to the Evaluate() concrete method field of Cyclic Module Record s in the ECMAScript specification.

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