Command line flag to specify output file name

[Irrelon]

Hey,

First off, this is absolutely awesome, seriously great work. JS has sorely needed this sort of thing since forever.

I've created a file watcher in WebStorm to automatically output generated files as their source changes by running the _node -c on the file. I was wondering how complex it would be to allow a further parameter to specify the output file name, or to output the result directly to the calling process (webstorm can take the stdout and save it separately).

Something like this:

_node -c myfilewithanyextension.js -out myfilewithanyextension.sl.js

Or to get the compiled version returned in stdout:

_node -c myfile.js -stdout

I suspect this would be a very easy change and am happy to dive in an do this myself but wanted to know if there are any obvious "gotchas" with what I'm proposing?

THANKS!!!

[bjouhier]

I have a question: why don't you use the ._js extension? This way the -c option would be sufficient.

Otherwise, this should not be too hard to implement. A few gotchas:

• There is already a -o option but it is used to specify an output directory. I would not reserve a single letter for the new option because it is a bit special (source file with non-standard extension). I would call it --output-file
• Implementation should not be too difficult. You would need to add the option in command.js, and then modify compiler._js/outputFile
• Redirecting the output to stdout is more challenging because the code is designed to write to a file. If you really need it, I suggest to use --output-file -, which is a standard syntax for stdout in the unix world.

[aseemk]

If reworking the code to stream to stdout is important, this could always be a "second step" in command.js: run the compiler like normal outputting to a temp file, then stream the temp file to stdout, before deleting it. A bit hacky maybe, but should get the job done. =)