Pass a value to exported function using require

Question

If I export a function like this:

const foo = "text";
const bar = function() {
    ...
}

module.exports = {
    foo,
    bar,
};

Is there any way to run the function bar when importing using require, e.g.

const { bar } = require('./myExports.js')('argForBar');

??

(currently when I do this I get the error TypeError: require(...) is not a function)

Answer 1

require('./myExports') returns an object, so you can't just invoke it like a function. If you export just an object with two fields, you will always get that 'require(...) is not a function' error.

You have alternatives like:

const bar = require('./myExports.js').bar('argForBar');

which doesn't need destructuring,or:

const {barF} = require('./myExports.js');
const bar = barF('argForBar');

Which destructures the bar function into the barF const, then call it.

Is there a problem with any of those?

At worst, you can do this trick, and export a function which happens to have properties, instead of a plain object:

const foo = "text";
const bar = function() {
    ...
}

const exported = function(param){
    return bar(param)
}

exported.foo = foo;
exported.bar = bar;

module.exports = exported;

This way, you make the module callable as the bar function, while it still is an object with the foo and bar properties. But this is completely convoluted and I don't feel is what you're looking for.