gulp-exist

A gulp plugin to deploy to and query an eXist-db using eXist's XML-RPC API.

Prerequisites

In order to make use of gulp-exist you will need to have gulp installed (in version 5 or later).

And a running existdb instance, of course (version 4.11.1 or higher recommended).

Installation

In your project folder run

npm install --save-dev gulp @existdb/gulp-exist

Usage

Then create a file with the name gulpfile.js in the root of your project with the following contents

const { src } = require('gulp'),
    { createClient } = require('@existdb/gulp-exist')

// authenticate against local eXist instance for development 
const connectionOptions = {
    basic_auth: {
        user: "admin",
        pass: ""
    }
}

const exClient = createClient(connectionOptions)

// deploy all
function deploy () {
    return src('**/*', { cwd: 'build', encoding: false })
        .pipe(exClient.dest({ target: '/db/apps/myapp/' }))
}

exports.default = deploy

Now, gulp deploy will store all files in the build directory to /db/apps/myapp collection in eXist.

Also note, that non-existing collections and sub-folders will be created automatically for you.

Have a look at the example gulpfile for a more complete gulpfile offering more advanced tasks.

API

exist.readOptionsFromEnv()

Read connection options from environment variables. Currently supported variables are listed in the table below.

variable name	default	description
EXISTDB_USER	none	the user used to connect to the database and to execute queries with
EXISTDB_PASS	none	the password to authenticate the user against the database
EXISTDB_SERVER	https://localhost:8443	the URL of the database instance to connect to (only http and https protocol allowed)

Example

With the below setup the connection is then controlled by the variables in the environment.

const { src } = require('gulp')
const { createClient, readOptionsFromEnv } = require('@existdb/gulp-exist')
const exClient = createClient(readOptionsFromEnv())

// deploy all
function deploy () {
    return src('**/*', { cwd: 'build', encoding: false })
        .pipe(exClient.dest({ target: '/db/apps/myapp/' }))
}

exports.default = deploy

EXISTDB_SERVER=http://localhost:8080 \
EXISTDB_USER=admin \
EXISTDB_PASS= \
gulp deploy

The npm package dotenv-cli offers a great way to read and set environment variables from files.

npm install -g dotenv-cli

Create a .env in your project root.

EXISTDB_SERVER=http://localhost:8080
EXISTDB_USER=admin
EXISTDB_PASS=

And then

dotenv gulp deploy

exist.createClient(options)

Returns a set of functions to interact with an eXist-db instance. What you can do is dependent on the permissions of the user specified in the connection options.

NOTE: The connection options are passed through to the XMLRPC client library. So it might be possible to use different authentication methods or to pass in more options than mentioned below as long as your eXist-db installation understands them.

Options

host

Type: string Default: 'localhost'

port

Type: number Default: 8443

path

Path to eXist's XML-RPC endpoint

Type: string Default: '/exist/xmlrpc'

basic_auth

The credentials used to authenticate requests. What you can and cannot do depends on the permissions this user has.

Type: Object Default:

{ user: 'guest', pass: 'guest' }

secure

Use HTTPS (or HTTP) to connect to the database instance.

NOTE: You need a valid certificate installed in the keystore of exist for connections to remote servers.

Type: Boolean Default: true

Example

Connecting to a remote server using a secure connection.

const { createClient } = require('@existdb/gulp-exist')
const exClient = createClient({
    host: "my-server.tld",
    secure: true,
    port: 443,
    basic_auth: {
        user: "app",
        pass: "1 handmade eclectic eclaire"
    }
})

Connecting to localhost server using a insecure connection.

const { createClient } = require('@existdb/gulp-exist')
const exClient = createClient({
    host: "localhost",
    secure: false,
    port: 8080
})

existClient.dest(options)

Uploads input files to a target collection in eXist.

Options

target

Remote deployment target collection. Non-existent collections will be created.

Type: string Default '/db'

html5AsBinary

When set to true, any HTML file that cannot be parsed as valid XML, will be uploaded as a binary file instead. HTML5 documents tend to be non well-formed XML.

Formerly binary_fallback. NOTE: Binary documents can not be indexed and therefore are also not searchable by the eXist-db. This option is only useful for template files.

Type: boolean Default: false

permissions

Specify remote permissions for files as path-permission pairs.

Type: Object{path: permissions} Default: {}

{
    '.secrets/key':   'rwx------',
    'controller.xql': 'rwxr-xr-x'
}

Example

const { src } = require('gulp')
const { createClient } = require('@existdb/gulp-exist')

// override defaults
const exist = createClient({
    basic_auth: {
        user: 'admin',
        pass: ''
    }
})

function deployWithPermissions () {
    return src('**/*', { cwd: '.', encoding: false })
        .pipe(exist.dest({
            target: '/db/apps/myapp/',
            permissions: { 'controller.xql': 'rwxr-xr-x' }
        }))
}

exports.default = deployWithPermissions

existClient.install(options)

Options

packageUri (deprecated)

The unique package descriptor of the application to be installed.

NOTE: For versions after v4.0.2 this option is ignored and will be read from the XAR itself.

customPackageRepoUrl

The application repository that will be used to resolve dependencies. Only needs to be set if the default repository cannot be used.

Example

const { src } = require('gulp')
const { createClient } = require('@existdb/gulp-exist')

// override defaults
const exist = createClient({
    basic_auth: {
        user: 'admin',
        pass: ''
    }
})

function install () {
    return src('spec/files/test-app.xar', { encoding: false })
        .pipe(exist.install())
}

existClient.newer(options)

Filters the input stream for files that are newer than their remote counterpart.

Options

target

Which collection to compare the local files to.

Example

Only upload modified files.

const { src } = require('gulp')
const { createClient } = require('@existdb/gulp-exist')

// override some default connection options
const exist = createClient({
    basic_auth: {
        user: 'admin',
        pass: ''
    }
})

const target = '/db/apps/myapp/'  // the collection to write to
const html5AsBinary = true        // upload HTML5 templates as binary


function deployNewer () {
	return src('**/*', { cwd: '.', encoding: false })
		.pipe(exist.newer({ target }))
		.pipe(exist.dest({ target, html5AsBinary }));
}

exports.default = deployNewer

existClient.query(options)

Execute input files as XQuery on the server.

The input files will not be stored in eXist but read locally and executed directly. The query results will be logged in the console (can be disabled by setting printXqlResults to false). For each input file, the result of the query will also be emitted as an output file that can optionally be copied into a local directory for logging. Timestamps will be appended to the filename. The filename extension of the output files can be controlled with xqlOutputExt (default is xml).

Query options

printXqlResults

Whether to print the results of executed XQuerys to console.

Type: boolean Default: true

xqlOutputExt

The filename extension that will be used for XQuery result files emitted by exist.query(). Possible values are 'xml' or 'json'.

Type: string Default: 'xml'

queryParams

Query params passed to the eXist-db XMLRPC API (https://exist-db.org/exist/apps/doc/devguide_xmlrpc). Can be used to pass query variables (see Example 2).

Type: Object Default: {}

Example 1

Upload a collection index configuration file and re-index the collection

scripts/reindex.xq

xquery version "3.1";
declare option exist:serialize "method=json media-type=text/javascript";

map { "success": xmldb:reindex('/db/apps/myapp/data') }

gulpfile.js

const { src, dest } = require('gulp')
const { createClient } = require('@existdb/gulp-exist')

// override some default connection options
const exist = createClient({
    basic_auth: {
        user: "admin",
        pass: ""
    }
})

const queryConfig = {
	target: '/db/apps/myapp',
	xqlOutputExt: 'json'
}

function deployCollectionXConf () {
	return src('collection.xconf', { cwd: '.' })
		.pipe(exist.dest({
            target: `/db/system/config${queryConfig.target}`
        }))
}

function reindex () {
	return src('scripts/reindex.xq', { cwd: '.' })
		.pipe(exist.query(queryConfig))
        .pipe(dest('logs'))
}

exports.default = series(deployCollectionXConf, reindex)

Example 2

Pass a variable to the XQuery script.

scripts/var.xq

(: optionally declare the variable as external :)
declare variable $someVariable external;

<result>{ $someVariable }</result>

gulpfile.js

const { src, dest } = require('gulp')
const { createClient } = require('@existdb/gulp-exist')

// override some default connection options
const exist = createClient({
    basic_auth: {
        user: "admin",
        pass: ""
    }
})

// set `variables` query parameter
const queryConfig = {
	queryParams: {
	    variables: {
	        someVariable: "some value"
	    }
	}
}

function runQueryWithVariable () {
	return src('scripts/var.xq', { cwd: '.' })
		.pipe(exist.query(queryConfig))
        .pipe(dest('logs'))
}

exports.default = runQueryWithVarible

Define Custom Mime Types

Override the mime type used to store files in exist based on their extension. defineMimeTypes just exposes mime.define(). NOTE: attempt to redefine a registered extension will throw an error.

Extended by default:

{
    'application/xquery': ['xq', 'xquery', 'xqs', 'xql', 'xqm'],
    'application/xml': ['xconf', 'odd']
}

Type: Object {mimetype: [extensions]}

Example

exist.defineMimeTypes({ 'text/foo': ['bar'] })

More examples

Have a look at the example gulpfile.

Watch File Changes

watch will report when a file has changed. deployBuild will run each time that happens uploading all files that have changed since its last execution.

const { watch, src, dest, lastRun } = require('gulp')
const { createClient } = require('@existdb/gulp-exist')

// override defaults
const connectionOptions = {
    basic_auth: {
        user: "admin",
        pass: ""
    }
}

const exist = createClient(connectionOptions)

function deployBuild () {
    return src('build/**/*', {
            base: 'build',
            since: lastRun(deployBuild),
            encoding: false
        })
        .pipe(exist.dest({target}))
}

exports.deploy = deployBuild

function watchBuild () {
    watch('build/**/*', series(deployBuild));
}
exports.watch = watchBuild

exports.default = series(deployBuild, watchDeploy)

Create and Install XAR Archive

const { src, dest } = require('gulp'),
    zip = require('gulp-zip'),
    pkg = require('./package.json'),
    { createClient } = require('@existdb/gulp-exist')

// override some default connection options
const exist = createClient({
    basic_auth: {
        user: "admin",
        pass: ""
    }
})

function build {
    // compile everything into the 'build' directory
}

function xar () {
    return src('build/**/*', { base: 'build', encoding: false })
            .pipe(zip(`${pkg.abbrev}-${pkg.version}.xar`))
            .pipe(dest("."));
}

function install () {
    return src(`${pkg.abbrev}-${pkg.version}.xar`, { encoding: false })
      .pipe(exist.install({ packageUri: "http://myapp" }))
}

exports.default = series(build, xar, install)

Test

Prerequisites

A running instance of eXist-db v2.2+ at localhost port 8443 with an admin user that has a blank password.

You can override the above settings with environment variables (see dbconnection.js for details).

Run the Tests

npm test

dotenv-cli can be used here, too:

dotenv npm test