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1 # read-package-tree
2 
3 [![Build Status](https://travis-ci.org/npm/read-package-tree.svg?branch=master)](https://travis-ci.org/npm/read-package-tree)
4 
5 Read the contents of node_modules.
6 
7 ## USAGE
8 
9 ```javascript
10 var rpt = require ('read-package-tree')
11 rpt('/path/to/pkg/root', function (node, kidName) {
12   // optional filter function– if included, each package folder found is passed to
13   // it to see if it should be included in the final tree
14   // node is what we're adding children to
15   // kidName is the directory name of the module we're considering adding
16   // return true -> include, false -> skip
17 }, function (er, data) {
18   // er means that something didn't work.
19   // data is a structure like:
20   // {
21   //   package: <package.json data, or an empty object>
22   //   package.name: defaults to `basename(path)`
23   //   children: [ <more things like this> ]
24   //   parent: <thing that has this in its children property, or null>
25   //   path: <path loaded>
26   //   realpath: <the real path on disk>
27   //   isLink: <set if this is a Link>
28   //   target: <if a Link, then this is the actual Node>
29   //   error: <if set, the error we got loading/parsing the package.json>
30   // }
31 })
32 
33 // or promise-style
34 rpt('/path/to/pkg/root').then(data => { ... })
35 ```
36 
37 That's it.  It doesn't figure out if dependencies are met, it doesn't
38 mutate package.json data objects (beyond what
39 [read-package-json](http://npm.im/read-package-json) already does), it
40 doesn't limit its search to include/exclude `devDependencies`, or
41 anything else.
42 
43 Just follows the links in the `node_modules` hierarchy and reads the
44 package.json files it finds therein.
45 
46 ## Symbolic Links
47 
48 When there are symlinks to packages in the `node_modules` hierarchy, a
49 `Link` object will be created, with a `target` that is a `Node`
50 object.
51 
52 For the most part, you can treat `Link` objects just the same as
53 `Node` objects.  But if your tree-walking program needs to treat
54 symlinks differently from normal folders, then make sure to check the
55 object.
56 
57 In a given `read-package-tree` run, a specific `path` will always
58 correspond to a single object, and a specific `realpath` will always
59 correspond to a single `Node` object.  This means that you may not be
60 able to pass the resulting data object to `JSON.stringify`, because it
61 may contain cycles.
62 
63 ## Errors
64 
65 Errors parsing or finding a package.json in node_modules will result in a
66 node with the error property set.  We will still find deeper node_modules
67 if any exist. *Prior to `5.0.0` these aborted tree reading with an error
68 callback.*
69 
70 Only a few classes of errors are fatal (result in an error callback):
71 
72 * If the top level location is entirely missing, that will error.
73 * if `fs.realpath` returns an error for any path its trying to resolve.
74