Run a command on each file in a folder and its subfolders (CLI tool designed for use in npm package.json scripts)

recursive-exec is the Unix find -type f -exec command for use in your project's package.json file.

Install package for node:

$ npm install --save-dev recursive-exec

Run recursive-exec from the "scripts" section of your package.json file.

Parameters:

• The first parameter is the source folder.
• The second parameter is the command template string.

Example package.json scripts:

"scripts": {
   "minimize-js": "recursive-exec build/web --ext=.js 'uglifyjs {{file}} --output dist/web/{{basename}}.min.js'"
},

The command template supports 6 variables:

For reusability and readability, best practice is to define commands as macros in your project's package.json file.

Example package.json scripts:

"recursiveExecConfig": {
   "commands": {
      "make-min-file": "uglifyjs {{file}} --output dist/web/{{basename}}.min.js"
   }
},
"scripts": {
   "minimize-js": "recursive-exec build/web --ext=.js {{command:make-min-file}}"
},

Example terminal command to minimize JavaScript files:

$ npm install --save-dev recursive-exec
$ npx recursive-exec build/web --ext=.js "uglifyjs {{file}} --output dist/web/{{basename}}.min.js"

You can also install recursive-exec globally (--global) and then run it anywhere directly from the terminal.

Command-line flags:

• recursive-exec src/web --ext=.less 'lessc src/web/{{filename}} build/web/{{basename}}.css'
  Compiles all LESS files in the src/web folder into CSS files in the build/web folder.

• recursive-exec src/web --ext=.less {{command:compile-less}}
  Identical to the previous example if a command macro named compile-less is defined correctly in your project's package.json file.

• recursive-exec src/web --ext=.less 'lessc {{file}} build/web/{{basename}}.css'
  Identical to the previous example since {{file}} includes the source folder (src/web) in the path.

• recursive-exec build/web --ext=.css 'csso {{file}} --output dist/web/{{filename}}'
  Optimizes the CSS files in the build/web folder and save the new files to the dist/web folder.

• recursive-exec build/web --ext=.js --quiet 'make-dir dist/web/{{path}}'
  Duplicates the folder structure from build/web over to dist/web (first run npm install --save-dev make-dir-cli).

• recursive-exec build/web --ext=.js 'uglifyjs {{file}} --output dist/web/{{basename}}.min.js'
  Minimizes the JavaScript files in the build/web folder and saves the new files to the dist/web folder with the .min.js file extension.

• recursive-exec src 'glob {{file}}'
  Lists out all source files.

• recursive-exec build/web-app --ext=.js --exclude=modules 'rollup {{file}} --file dist/web-app/{{filename}} --name {{nameCamelCase}}'
  Uses rollup to bundle the JavaScript for each web page but skip over the modules folders.

Note: Single quotes in commands are normalized so they work cross-platform and avoid the errors often encountered on Microsoft Windows.

Even though recursive-exec is primarily intended for build scripts, the package can be used programmatically in ESM and TypeScript projects.

Example:

import { recursiveExec } from 'recursive-exec';

const options = { quiet: true };
const results = recursiveExec.find('src/web', 'ls -o {{file}}', options);
console.info('Number of files:', results.length);

See the TypeScript Declarations at the top of recursive-exec.ts for documentation.

CLI Build Tools for package.json

• 🎋 add-dist-header:  Prepend a one-line banner comment (with license notice) to distribution files
• 📄 copy-file-util:  Copy or rename a file with optional package version number
• 📂 copy-folder-util:  Recursively copy files from one folder to another folder
• 🪺 recursive-exec:  Run a command on each file in a folder and its subfolders
• 🔍 replacer-util:  Find and replace strings or template outputs in text files
• 🔢 rev-web-assets:  Revision web asset filenames with cache busting content hash fingerprints
• 🚆 run-scripts-util:  Organize npm package.json scripts into groups of easy to manage commands
• 🚦 w3c-html-validator:  Check the markup validity of HTML files using the W3C validator

Feel free to submit questions at:
github.com/center-key/recursive-exec/issues

MIT License