Remove the generation step

[MoOx]

It was used to provide compat for browserify, but this cause more problem than it solves.
Removing this will fix #29 #32 #36 #39 #40.

And bundler like webpack might be able to handle the dynamic require.

[MoOx]

PR welcome if anyone comes around.

[Nyalab]

yes, it may be time to think about it

[tiagocpontesp]

Can we please get #41 merged in the meantime?
Isn't it better than adding a jspm package-override in the grand scheme of things?

[ScottKaye]

Looks like the generation step is completely failing for me because of shelljs:

X:\Scott\Projects\wc1\node_modules\caniuse-api>dir
...
2016-08-08  09:45 PM    <DIR>          .
2016-08-08  09:45 PM    <DIR>          ..
2016-08-08  09:41 PM             1,710 CHANGELOG.md
2016-08-08  09:41 PM    <DIR>          dist
2016-08-08  09:41 PM               193 generator.js
2016-08-08  09:41 PM             1,084 LICENSE
2016-08-08  09:41 PM             2,790 package.json
2016-08-08  09:41 PM             2,656 README.md

X:\Scott\Projects\wc1\node_modules\caniuse-api>node generator
fs.js:1568
  return binding.realpath(pathModule._makeLong(path), options.encoding);
                 ^

Error: EISDIR: illegal operation on a directory, realpath 'R:\Temp\shelljs_4ae1a0f6948005172c00'
    at Error (native)
    at Object.realpathSync (fs.js:1568:18)
    at Function.Module._findPath (module.js:167:25)
    at Function.Module._resolveFilename (module.js:438:25)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:388:25)
    at Module.runMain (module.js:575:10)
    at run (node.js:348:7)
    at startup (node.js:140:9)
    at node.js:463:3

caniuse-api: Generation ok

Might be because my temp directory is on a different drive. Executing node dist/generate-features.js generates features.js just fine though.

Replacing the entirety of generator.js with this solves the issue for me:

require("child_process").exec("node dist/generate-features.js");

I can put this in a PR if this works for you guys - it's my bandaid solution, but looks like it works properly to me.

[alexisvincent]

Can this be implemented?

[MoOx]

Yes sure. #42 (comment)

[alexisvincent]

@MoOx What would happen if we just moved the generation step from post install to build

[alexisvincent]

@MoOx Ok, so from what I can see, you want to read the local db. Would you be happy if i submitted a pr that performed the generation step when the file is required?

[MoOx]

We should just remove it and don't care about browserify and stuff. We might add a solution for browserify and friends to accept some hardcoded data.

[MoOx]

(because this step was basically to avoid dynamic require() call so browserify can handle it).

[alexisvincent]

Oh i see, ok, how would you suggest going about this?

[MoOx]

For now just try to remove this generation step and try to access directly require files when needed?

[alexisvincent]

The problem that I'm hitting is with jspm and cssnext (which relies on this). So anyway the postInstall step is not being run. So when cssnext wants to use the api, this project internally accesses the features.js file. Which hasn't yet been created. So at some point we actually need to get the features file. Unless what you're saying is to modify this project so that it directly requires the features file from db?

[MoOx]

Unless what you're saying is to modify this project so that it directly requires the features file from db?

That's what I am saying :)

[MoOx]

Closed by #47