ArangoDB Foxx: require() returned undefined

Question

I created an ArangoDB Foxx service, and successfully mounted it on some route using Foxx CLI. My service has a dependency which uses randombytes. When I call the service it returns an error saying `randomBytes is not a function.

For testing purposes I have created another service and just returned typeof require('randombytes'). And it returned undefined.

During installation Foxx CLI didn't warn me anything.

Does anyone had such experience?

Answer 1

First, have you defined your randombytes module in your package.json dependencies ?

{
  "private": true,
  "dependencies": {
    "randombytes": "2.1.0"
  }
}

Then what about

let randombytes = require('randombytes');
console.log(randomBytes(16));

Actually I just tested ... and it returns "undefined" as well ... so not sure it's a valid module for arango.

It's better to use arango's crypto methods

https://www.arangodb.com/docs/stable/appendix-java-script-modules-crypto.html#genrandomnumbers

Answer 2

I don't think that Foxx will alert you to missing dependencies, but it is important to make sure they are included in your ZIP package before installing your service/app.

My project is organized like this:

MyProject
   |-- foxx
       |-- service1
       |-- service2
       ...

I have a package.json file in the root of the project, as well as in each of the "service" folders. My workflow (make) runs npm install inside each "service" folder before creating the ZIP archive.

Just make sure to include the node_modules folder and all should be happy.