When building applications with the Saito-Lite-Rust software, Javascript must first be compiled before it can ran on a core-client or served to lite-clients (like browsers). The core-client is a full node and more specifically, an application node. The Saito-lite-Rust core-client is responsible for compiling and serving compiled applications to lite-clients such as the apps on Saito.io.
Application won't be compiled until the compile configuration file at config/modules.config.js lists it in the core or lite sections. The core section lists the modules that will run on your full node server. The lite section lists the modules that your server will compile and serve by default for any lite-clients that connect to it (these apps can run without any central server once launched).
Open the file /saito-lite-rust/config/modules.config.js.
Add myApp/myApp.js to core, lite or both.
core [
'myApp/myApp.js',
...
lite: [
'myApp/myApp.js',
...
The JavaScript bundle can created with either of the following commands:
Navigate to /saito-lite-rust.
First-time compilation or a chain and databse reset (sometimes useful for debugging) can be achieved with:
npm run nuke
To preserve data and just recompile the new JavaScript:
npm run compile
Once compilation finishes, start Saito by running:
npm start
As touched on above, Saito-lite-Rust compilation takes two primary forms:
npm run nuke which clears out persistent data.npm run compile command which preserves all data except previously compiled JS.The compilation commands have their procedures explicitly defined in scripts/install.js - what follows is a summary.
Running npm run nuke will remove and reset the /data directory, which includes application databases, block and transaction data, bundler data and more. The full extent of the reset is defined in the following functions contained in scripts/install.js:
reset_nonpersistent();
reset_persistent();
reset_bundler();
The following JS code pertaining to the config/ folder is executed on npm run nuke.
if (!fs.existsSync('../config/modules.config.js')) {
copyDir('../config/modules.default.js', '../config/modules.config.js');
}
if (fs.existsSync('../config/options.conf')) {
copyDir('../config/options.conf', '../config/options');
}
The networking configuration file ./config/options is replaced with ./config/options.conf, if the latter (.conf version) exists.
If a ./config/modules.config.js file does not exist, the nuke command will create one from the given default: ./config/modules.default.js.
Running npm run nuke will create fresh versions of these configuration files from template files that are stored in the config directory. It will also compiles a compressed version of Saito from the modules.config.js that will be fed out to browsers which connect to the server and request the default Javascript.
You can always reset your client by running the "nuke" command, but if you wish to change the applications supported on your server without resetting the blockchain, you can run the following instruction instead:
npm run compile
compile ScriptThe compile script supports additional logging options, which can be specified using the --loglevel or -l flags. This feature allows you to set the desired log level for the compilation process.
To set a specific log level, use one of the following commands:
npm run compile -- --loglevel=<level>
or
npm run compile -- -l <level>
Where level can be one of the following:
errorwarninfotracedebugFor example, to set the log level to warn, you can use either:
npm run compile -- --loglevel=warn
npm run compile -- -l warn
Both the compile and nuke scripts can be run with a dev flag:
npm run compile dev
npm run nuke dev
When this flag is used:
JavaScript is not minimized and source maps are shipped with the code
The payload is 2 to 3 times larger than otherwise but makes in-browser
debugging possible.
CSS files are linked (@include() CSS source files, rather than
being a concatenation of the source CSS). This makes CSS development
slightly easier.
The result is that many more files are downloaded by the client, but in-browser debugging is much easier