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import nodely
    
Many great tools are written with JavaScript in Node.js.
It makes sense to use them in Python instead of reinventing the wheel.
nodely provides an API for managing local node_modules/ in Python environments
and running the installed Node.js tools from Python
If the root directory of the current Python environment is:
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import sys
sys.prefix
    
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Then nodely will create:
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nodely.NODE_MODULES_DIR
    
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Please don't modify the above constant, except you exactly know what you are doing ;)
Let's say you want to use the CoffeeScript compiler... Just install the Node.js package:
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nodely.install('coffee-script')
    
It provides the coffee executable. If you want to know its absolute path:
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nodely.which('coffee')
    
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And if you want to run it, for example with the --version flag:
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nodely.call('coffee', ['--version'])
    
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For the case that you want to get rid of the package again,
just nodely.uninstall('coffee-script') it
Instead of installing Node.js packages during runtime, you can also define them as dependencies of your Python package:
from setuptools import setup
setup(
    ...
    setup_requires=['nodely', ...],
    require_node_modules=['coffee-script', ...],
    ...
)
So they get implicitly installed during the installation of the Python package,
just like the Python dependencies defined in install_requires
The nodely.call function additionally supports subprocess.call options:
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from subprocess import DEVNULL
nodely.call('coffee', ['--version'], stdout=DEVNULL)
    
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And instead of a simple nodely.call,
you can also create a process instance,
and give any subprocess.Popen options to it:
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from subprocess import PIPE
process = nodely.Popen('coffee', ['--version'], stdout=PIPE,
                       universal_newlines=True)
    
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process.communicate()[0].split()[-1]
    
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A more object-oriented approach is provided by:
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import nodely.bin
    
It lets you introspect all installed executables with interactive auto-completion
and creates nodely.bin.Command instances:
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coffee = nodely.bin.coffee
    
nodely.bin['coffee'] returns the same.
And that nodely.bin.Command instance provides its own .call and a .Popen methods,
and can also be called directly instead of using its .call method:
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coffee(['--version'])
    
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