Importing Variables

A while back I had installed a submodule inside one of my repositories: Yash-Singh1/npm-expansions-randomgen. The submodules contained lists of all the words of a part of speech. However, it was a gist and the variables weren't exported. This article shows a workaround using eval that solves the problem.

Eval

Before I introduce the workaround, let me introduce eval. eval is a function that allows to run the code provided as a string inside the arguments. For example:

eval('console.log("hello world")');

Would run:

console.log('hello world');

Another thing to keep in mind is that eval is unsafe and not allowed to be used everywhere.

Importing Unexported Variables

To import a variable VAR from a file FILE, run:

eval('(()=>{' + fs.readFileSync(FILE, 'utf8') + ';return ' + VAR + ';})()');

This would have a function that runs the contents of the file and returns the string VAR that is the variable. This function is then run inside eval.

Here is an example in my code.