node-addon-api module
This module contains header-only C++ wrapper classes which simplify the use of the C based N-API provided by Node.js when using C++. It provides a C++ object model and exception handling semantics with low overhead.
N-API is an ABI stable C interface provided by Node.js for building native addons. It is independent from the underlying JavaScript runtime (e.g. V8 or ChakraCore) and is maintained as part of Node.js itself. It is intended to insulate native addons from changes in the underlying JavaScript engine and allow modules compiled for one version to run on later versions of Node.js without recompilation.
The node-addon-api module, which is not part of Node.js, preserves the benefits
of the N-API as it consists only of inline code that depends only on the stable API
provided by N-API. As such, modules built against one version of Node.js
using node-addon-api should run without having to be rebuilt with newer versions
of Node.js.
It is important to remember that other Node.js interfaces such as
libuv (included in a project via #include <uv.h>) are not ABI-stable across
Node.js major versions. Thus, an addon must use N-API and/or node-addon-api
exclusively and build against a version of Node.js that includes an
implementation of N-API (meaning a version of Node.js newer than 6.14.2) in
order to benefit from ABI stability across Node.js major versions. Node.js
provides an ABI stability guide containing a detailed explanation of ABI
stability in general, and the N-API ABI stability guarantee in particular.
As new APIs are added to N-API, node-addon-api must be updated to provide wrappers for those new APIs. For this reason node-addon-api provides methods that allow callers to obtain the underlying N-API handles so direct calls to N-API and the use of the objects/methods provided by node-addon-api can be used together. For example, in order to be able to use an API for which the node-addon-api does not yet provide a wrapper.
APIs exposed by node-addon-api are generally used to create and manipulate JavaScript values. Concepts and operations generally map to ideas specified in the ECMA262 Language Specification.
- Setup
- API Documentation
- Examples
- Tests
- More resource and info about native Addons
- Code of Conduct
- Contributors
- License
Current version: 2.0.0
(See CHANGELOG.md for complete Changelog)
Setup
API Documentation
The following is the documentation for node-addon-api.
- Basic Types
- Error Handling
- Object Lifetime Management
- Working with JavaScript Values
- Memory Management
- Async Operations
- Thread-safe Functions
- Promises
- Version management
Examples
Are you new to node-addon-api? Take a look at our examples
- Hello World
- Pass arguments to a function
- Callbacks
- Object factory
- Function factory
- Wrapping C++ Object
- Factory of wrapped object
- Passing wrapped object around
Tests
To run the node-addon-api tests do:
npm install
npm test
To avoid testing the deprecated portions of the API run
npm install
npm test --disable-deprecated
Debug
To run the node-addon-api tests with --debug option:
npm run-script dev
If you want faster build, you might use the following option:
npm run-script dev:incremental
Take a look and get inspired by our test suite
Contributing
We love contributions from the community to node-addon-api. See CONTRIBUTING.md for more details on our philosophy around extending this module.
More resource and info about native Addons
WG Members / Collaborators
Active
| Name | GitHub Link |
|---|---|
| Anna Henningsen | addaleax |
| Gabriel Schulhof | gabrielschulhof |
| Hitesh Kanwathirtha | digitalinfinity |
| Jim Schlight | jschlight |
| Michael Dawson | mhdawson |
| Kevin Eady | KevinEady |
| Nicola Del Gobbo | NickNaso |
Emeritus
| Name | GitHub Link |
|---|---|
| Arunesh Chandra | aruneshchandra |
| Benjamin Byholm | kkoopa |
| Jason Ginchereau | jasongin |
| Sampson Gao | sampsongao |
| Taylor Woll | boingoing |
Licensed under MIT
