node-addon-api module

This module contains header-only C++ wrapper classes which simplify the use of the C based N-API provided by Node.js when using C++. It provides a C++ object model and exception handling semantics with low overhead.

N-API is an ABI stable C interface provided by Node.js for building native addons. It is independent from the underlying JavaScript runtime (e.g. V8 or ChakraCore) and is maintained as part of Node.js itself. It is intended to insulate native addons from changes in the underlying JavaScript engine and allow modules compiled for one version to run on later versions of Node.js without recompilation.

The node-addon-api module, which is not part of Node.js, preserves the benefits of the N-API as it consists only of inline code that depends only on the stable API provided by N-API. As such, modules built against one version of Node.js using node-addon-api should run without having to be rebuilt with newer versions of Node.js.

As new APIs are added to N-API, node-addon-api must be updated to provide wrappers for those new APIs. For this reason node-addon-api provides methods that allow callers to obtain the underlying N-API handles so direct calls to N-API and the use of the objects/methods provided by node-addon-api can be used together. For example, in order to be able to use an API for which the node-add-api does not yet provide a wrapper.

APIs exposed by node-addon-api are generally used to create and manipulate JavaScript values. Concepts and operations generally map to ideas specified in the ECMA262 Language Specification.

• Setup
• API Documentation
• Examples
• Tests
• More resource and info about native Addons
• Code of Conduct
• Contributors
• License

Current version: 1.4

(See CHANGELOG.md for complete Changelog)

Setup

• Installation and usage
• node-gyp
• cmake-js
• Conversion tool
• Generator

API Documentation

The following is the documentation for node-addon-api (NOTE: still a work in progress as its not yet complete).

• Basic Types
  • Array
  • Symbol
  • String
  • Name
  • Number
  • Boolean
  • Env
  • Value
  • CallbackInfo
  • Reference
  • External
  • Object
    • ObjectReference
    • PropertyDescriptor
• Error Handling
  • Error
  • TypeError
  • RangeError
• Object Lifetime Management
  • HandleScope
  • EscapableHandleScope
• Working with JavaScript Values
  • Function
    • FunctionReference
  • ObjectWrap
    • ClassPropertyDescriptor
  • Buffer
  • ArrayBuffer
  • TypedArray
    • TypedArrayOf
• Memory Management
• Async Operations
  • AsyncWorker
• Promises

Examples

Are you new to node-addon-api? Take a look at our examples

• Hello World
• Pass arguments to a function
• Callbacks
• Object factory
• Function factory
• Wrapping C++ Object
• Factory of wrapped object
• Passing wrapped object around

Tests

To run the node-addon-api tests do:

npm install
npm test

Take a look and get inspired by our test suite

More resource and info about native Addons

• C++ Addons
• N-API
• N-API - Next Generation Node API for Native Modules

WG Members / Collaborators

Name	GitHub link
Anna Henningsen	addaleax
Arunesh Chandra	aruneshchandra
Benjamin Byholm	kkoopa
Gabriel Schulhof	gabrielschulhof
Hitesh Kanwathirtha	digitalinfinity
Jason Ginchereau	jasongin
Michael Dawson	mhdawson
Nicola Del Gobbo	NickNaso
Sampson Gao	sampsongao
Taylor Woll	boingoing

Licensed under MIT