workerify

Transform web workers into browserified inline Blobs with browserify.

example

Your entry point main.js:

var mod = require('module')
var worker = new Worker('worker.js')

Your worker entry point worker.js:

self.onmessage = function(e) {
  var ab = new Uint8Array(10)
  for (var n = 0; n < ab.length; n++) ab[n] = 1
  self.postMessage(ab.buffer, [ab.buffer])
}

Browserify with this workerify transform:

browserify -t workerify main.js > bundle.js

and your bundle.js will look like:

var mod = require('module')
var worker = new Worker(window.URL.createObjectURL(new Blob(['BROWSERIFIED CONTENTS OF worker.js'])));

further example

Take a look at the example module for using with workerstream.

Modular Workers

The main reason for this is modular workers.

Let's say you create a module that would like to use web workers. Users would need to configure the URL to the worker. When your module becomes a dependency of a dependency and so on, the setup becomes really cumbersome. Especially when your worker needs to be browserified.

With this transform you simply npm install workerify --save and configure your module's package.json to apply the transform:

{
  "name": "mymodule",
  "browserify": {
    "transform": "workerify"
  }
}

Now when end users browserify your module, anywhere in the dependency tree, it will browserify and inline the worker. No URLs, no extra build steps and no additional end user requirements.

Notes

Currently it will transform the following:

// String literal
new Worker('./path/to/worker.js')

// Variable Init Earlier
var myworker = './path/to/worker.js'
new Worker(myworker)

// Or specify the workerify keyword to browserify a string anywhere
// Useful if you want to inline your worker when working with other libs
var myworker = workerify './path/to/worker.js'
var workerstream = require('workerstream')(myworker)

Using with coffeescript

browserify file.coffee -t coffeeify -t workerify

install

With npm do:

npm install workerify

release history

1.1.0 - Support for Workers as modules (@moin-qidwai).
1.0.0 - Upgrade browserify to 14.0.0 (@runn1ng) and other deps. Prefer window.URL over window.webkitURL.
0.3.0 - Upgrade browserify to 3.41.0. Allow worker to be used with watchify (@tmpvar)
0.2.3 - support compilation from coffeescript original source file
0.2.2 - string-escape dep renamed to jsesc (@mathiasbynens)
0.2.1 - Add missing falafel dep and bug fixes (@mikolalysenko)
0.2.0 - use falafel and support more formats
0.1.0 - initial release

license

Current Tags

1.1.0 ... latest (7 years ago)