civicrm-cv (nodejs binding)

This is a wrapper for interacting with a local CiviCRM instance (in the current folder). You may call cv sub-commands such as api, url, vars:show, or php:eval.

It aims to be a shim enabling grunt, gulp, protractor or other node-based CLI tools to manipulate the local Civi site (without any extra configuration or hard-coded paths).

Requirements

• Install cv somewhere in the PATH.

• Check that cv works with your local CiviCRM build (e.g. run cv api system.get or cv api system.get -vvv).

• Do your work under the Drupal/Joomla/WordPress web root (or any child thereof) so that it can be autodetected.

Installation

npm install civicrm-cv --save

Usage: cv()

Use the main civicrm-cv helper to call cv subcommands. Results may be returned as promises:

// Call the Contact.get API for contact #100. Return a promise.

var cv = require('civicrm-cv')({mode: 'promise'});
cv('api contact.get id=100').then(function(result){
  console.log("Found records: " + result.count);
});

Alternatively, you may execute subcommands synchronously:

// Lookup the general site metadata. Return the data synchronously (blocking I/O).

var cv = require('civicrm-cv')({mode: 'sync'});
var result = cv('vars:show');
console.log("The Civi database is " + result.CIVI_DB_DSN);
console.log("The CMS database is " + result.CMS_DB_DSN);

Note that the previous examples specify the full subcommand (i.e. all options are passed in one string which is executed as-is). If you wish to break them up, pass an array. Each array item will be automatically escaped.

This is particularly useful with the php:eval subcommand -- which often involves passing unusual characters, e.g.

// Execute a small fragment of PHP code. Return the data synchronously (blocking I/O).

var cv = require('civicrm-cv')({mode: 'sync'});
var result = cv(['php:eval', '$x = 2; return [$x * $x];']);
console.log("Received value: " + result);

Usage: cvRes

civicrm-cv provides access to the local CiviCRM instance. If there are any resource files (such as CSS or JS) provided by CiviCRM, you can access them with through resources:

var cvRes = require('civicrm-cv/resources')();
console.log('The CiviCRM copy of lodash is: ', cvRes.getPath('civicrm', 'bower_components/lodash-compat/lodash.js'));
cvRes.require('civicrm', 'bower_components/lodash-compat/lodash.js');

Testing

Tests are stored under spec/ and written with Jasmine.

Execute them with npm:

npm test

Comparison

Depending on the use-case, you may be better served with Xavier Dutoit's https://github.com/TechToThePeople/node-civicrm. For comparison:

• The civicrm package goes through the REST API. It works remotely and requires login credentials (user and site key). It can take advantage of load-balancers, opcode caching, etc. It focuses on APIv3. It’s intended for data-integrations or nodejs based applications (eg an LDAP server or a bot).

• The civicrm-cv package starts Civi via CLI. It works locally and can autodiscover the site. It includes some API support (cv('api contact.get id=3')) — but it can also execute PHP code and load metadata about the site-build. It’s intended more for testing and site-building.

Patchwelcome: Complicated API Inputs

The mechanics of cv(...) should be pretty useable with most subcommands. For the API, it can handle basic API calls. However, if you need to use more advanced API options (such as chaining), it might look ugly. cv api can accept more complicated inputs using JSON notation and a pipe, as in:

echo '{"foo":["bar", 123, {...}]}' | cv api Entity.action --in=json

It would be really nice to have a a cv api wrapper which supports that more intuitively, e.g.

var cv = require('civicrm-cv')({mode: 'promise'});
cv.api('contact', 'create', {
  contact_type: 'Individual',
  first_name: 'Alice',
  'api.Email.create': { ... }
}).then(function(result){
  console.log("Created records: " + result.count);
});