Compiler File Loading Directives

The Opal compiler supports some special directives that can optimize or enhance the output of compiled Ruby code to suit the Ruby environment.

Require Directive

All calls to require are captured so that the compiler and build tools can determine which dependencies a file has. In the case of Builder, these are collated and then added to a list of files to be processed.

require

Assuming we have a file foo.rb:

# foo.rb
require 'bar'
require 'baz'

The compiler will collect these two dependencies, and then Builder will attempt to discover them within the Opal load path to also compile them into the target output. If these dependencies cannot be resolved, then a compile time error will be thrown.

Dynamic Requires

Opal only supports hard-coded requires. This means that any dynamically generated require statements cannot be discovered. Opal may raise an error or just produce a warning if a dynamic require is used. A dynamic require is any require that cannot be resolved using static analysis. A common use case of dynamic requires is to include a directory of Ruby files. In this case, see require_tree below.

require_relative

require_relative is also supported by Opal's compiler for ahead-of-time inclusion.

# foo.rb
require_relative 'bar'

This example will try to resolve bar.rb in the same directory.

autoload

autoload is used to load a modules and classes within a modules namespace. As long as the string argument given to autoload can be resolved in Opal's load paths, in the same way as require, then these referenced dependencies will also be compiled.

# foo.rb
module Foo
  autoload :Bar, 'bar'
end

In this example, bar.rb will also be required.

require_tree

require_tree can be used as an Opal-friendly alternative to globbing over a directory to require a list of dependencies.

# foo.rb
require_tree './models'

This will, at compile time, resolve all files inside the models/ directory and also compile them to the output. At runtime this method will then loop over all modules defined, and require them if they match that given module path.

Note: The given directory must be inside Opal's load path, otherwise no files will be compiled.

Handling non-Ruby requirements

Opal's require method is also special as it allows non-Ruby source files to be required and generated in the output. The obvious example of this is requiring JavaScript source files. JavaScript sources are treated as first class citizens in Opal. The Opal gem also supports compiling .erb files using the same process.

Opal Specific Code Compilation

A special case if and unless statements can hide or show blocks of code from the Opal compiler. These check against RUBY_ENGINE or RUBY_PLATFORM. As these are valid Ruby statements against constants that exist in all Ruby runtimes, they will not affect any running code:

if RUBY_ENGINE == 'opal'
  # this code compiles
else
  # this code never compiles
end

Unless statements are also supported:

unless RUBY_ENGINE == 'opal'
  # this code will not run
end

Also != statements work:

if RUBY_ENGINE != 'opal'
  puts 'do not run this code'
end

These blocks of code don't run at all at runtime, but they also never compile so will never be in the output JavaScript code. This is particularly useful for using code in both MRI and Opal.

Some uses are:

• Avoid require statements being picked up by Opal compile time require handling.

• To stop certain requires taking place for Opal (and vice-versa for shared libraries).

• To wrap x-strings which might break in compiled JavaScript output.

• To simply avoid compiling large blocks of code that are not needed in the JavaScript/Opal version of an app.

In all these examples RUBY_PLATFORM can be used instead of RUBY_ENGINE.