# deltachat-node
> node.js bindings for [`deltachat-core-rust`](..)
[](https://www.npmjs.com/package/deltachat-node)

[](https://prettier.io)
`deltachat-node` primarily aims to offer two things:
- A high level JavaScript api with syntactic sugar
- A low level c binding api around [`deltachat-core-rust`](..)
This code used to live at [`deltachat-node`](https://github.com/deltachat/deltachat-node)
## Table of Contents
Click to expand
- [Install](#install)
- [Dependencies](#dependencies)
- [Build from source](#build-from-source)
- [Usage](#usage)
- [Developing](#developing)
- [License](#license)
## Install
By default the installation will try to use the bundled prebuilds in the
npm package. If this fails it falls back to compile `../deltachat-core-rust` from
this repository, using `scripts/rebuild-core.js`.
To install from npm use:
```
npm install deltachat-node
```
## Dependencies
- Nodejs >= `v18.0.0`
- rustup (optional if you can't use the prebuilds)
> On Windows, you may need to also install **Perl** to be able to compile deltachat-core.
## Build from source
If you want to build from source, make sure that you have `rustup` installed.
You can either use `npm install deltachat-node --build-from-source` to force
building from source or clone this repository and follow this steps:
1. `git clone https://github.com/deltachat/deltachat-core-rust.git`
2. `cd deltachat-core-rust`
3. `npm i`
4. `npm run build`
> Our `package.json` file is located in the root directory of this repository,
> not inside this folder. (We need this in order to include the rust source
> code in the npm package.)
### Use a git branch in deltachat-desktop
You can directly install a core branch, but make sure:
- that you have typescript in your project dependencies, as it is likely required
- you know that there are **no prebuilds** and so core is built during installation which is why it takes so long
```
npm install https://github.com/deltachat/deltachat-core-rust.git#branch
```
If you want prebuilds for a branch that has a core pr, you might find an npm tar.gz package for that branch at .
The github ci also posts a link to it in the checks for each pr.
### Use build-from-source in deltachat-desktop
If you want to use the manually built node bindings in the desktop client (for
example), you can follow these instructions:
First clone the
[deltachat-desktop](https://github.com/deltachat/deltachat-desktop) repository,
e.g. with `git clone https://github.com/deltachat/deltachat-desktop`.
Then you need to make sure that this directory is referenced correctly in
deltachat-desktop's package.json. You need to change
`deltachat-desktop/package.json` like this:
```
diff --git i/package.json w/package.json
index 45893894..5154512c 100644
--- i/package.json
+++ w/package.json
@@ -83,7 +83,7 @@
"application-config": "^1.0.1",
"classnames": "^2.3.1",
"debounce": "^1.2.0",
- "deltachat-node": "1.79.3",
+ "deltachat-node": "file:../deltachat-core-rust/",
"emoji-js-clean": "^4.0.0",
"emoji-mart": "^3.0.1",
"emoji-regex": "^9.2.2",
```
Then, in the `deltachat-desktop` repository, run:
1. `npm i`
2. `npm run build`
3. And `npm run start` to start the newly built client.
### Workaround to build for x86_64 on Apple's M1
deltachat doesn't support universal (fat) binaries (that contain builds for both cpu architectures) yet, until it does you can use the following workaround to get x86_64 builds:
```
$ fnm install 19 --arch x64
$ fnm use 19
$ node -p process.arch
# result should be x64
$ rustup target add x86_64-apple-darwin
$ git apply patches/m1_build_use_x86_64.patch
$ CARGO_BUILD_TARGET=x86_64-apple-darwin npm run build
$ npm run test
```
(when using [fnm](https://github.com/Schniz/fnm) instead of nvm, you can select the architecture)
If your node and electron are already build for arm64 you can also try building for arm:
```
$ fnm install 18 --arch arm64
$ fnm use 18
$ node -p process.arch
# result should be arm64
$ npm_config_arch=arm64 npm run build
$ npm run test
```
## Usage
```js
const { Context } = require('deltachat-node')
const opts = {
addr: '[email]',
mail_pw: '[password]',
}
const contact = '[email]'
async function main() {
const dc = Context.open('./')
dc.on('ALL', console.log.bind(null, 'core |'))
try {
await dc.configure(opts)
} catch (err) {
console.error('Failed to configure because of: ', err)
dc.unref()
return
}
dc.startIO()
console.log('fully configured')
const contactId = dc.createContact('Test', contact)
const chatId = dc.createChatByContactId(contactId)
dc.sendMessage(chatId, 'Hi!')
console.log('sent message')
dc.once('DC_EVENT_SMTP_MESSAGE_SENT', async () => {
console.log('Message sent, shutting down...')
dc.stopIO()
console.log('stopped io')
dc.unref()
})
}
main()
```
this example can also be found in the examples folder [examples/send_message.js](./examples/send_message.js)
### Generating Docs
We are currently migrating to automatically generated documentation.
You can find the old documentation at [old_docs](./old_docs).
to generate the documentation, run:
```
npx typedoc
```
The resulting documentation can be found in the `docs/` folder.
An online version can be found under [js.delta.chat](https://js.delta.chat).
## Developing
### Tests and Coverage
Running `npm test` ends with showing a code coverage report, which is produced by [`nyc`](https://github.com/istanbuljs/nyc#readme).

The coverage report from `nyc` in the console is rather limited. To get a more detailed coverage report you can run `npm run coverage-html-report`. This will produce a html report from the `nyc` data and display it in a browser on your local machine.
To run the integration tests you need to set the `CHATMAIL_DOMAIN` environment variables. E.g.:
```
$ export CHATMAIL_DOMAIN=chat.example.org
$ npm run test
```
### Scripts
We have the following scripts for building, testing and coverage:
- `npm run coverage` Creates a coverage report and passes it to `coveralls`. Only done by `Travis`.
- `npm run coverage-html-report` Generates a html report from the coverage data and opens it in a browser on the local machine.
- `npm run generate-constants` Generates `constants.js` and `events.js` based on the `deltachat-core-rust/deltachat-ffi/deltachat.h` header file.
- `npm install` After dependencies are installed, runs `node-gyp-build` to see if the native code needs to be rebuilt.
- `npm run build` Rebuilds all code.
- `npm run build:core` Rebuilds code in `deltachat-core-rust`.
- `npm run build:bindings` Rebuilds the bindings and links with `deltachat-core-rust`.
- `ǹpm run clean` Removes all built code
- `npm run prebuildify` Builds prebuilt binary to `prebuilds/$PLATFORM-$ARCH`. Copies `deltachat.dll` from `deltachat-core-rust` for windows.
- `npm run download-prebuilds` Downloads all prebuilt binaries from github before `npm publish`.
- `npm test` Runs `standard` and then the tests in `test/index.js`.
- `npm run test-integration` Runs the integration tests.
- `npm run hallmark` Runs `hallmark` on all markdown files.
### Releases
The following steps are needed to make a release:
1. Wait until `pack-module` github action is completed
2. Run `npm publish https://download.delta.chat/node/deltachat-node-1.x.x.tar.gz` to publish it to npm. You probably need write rights to npm.
## License
Licensed under `GPL-3.0-or-later`, see [LICENSE](./LICENSE) file for details.
> Copyright © 2018 `DeltaChat` contributors.
>
> This program is free software: you can redistribute it and/or modify
> it under the terms of the GNU General Public License as published by
> the Free Software Foundation, either version 3 of the License, or
> (at your option) any later version.
>
> This program is distributed in the hope that it will be useful,
> but WITHOUT ANY WARRANTY; without even the implied warranty of
> MERCHANTABILITY or FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE. See the
> GNU General Public License for more details.
>
> You should have received a copy of the GNU General Public License
> along with this program. If not, see .
[appveyor-shield]: https://ci.appveyor.com/api/projects/status/t0narp672wpbl6pd?svg=true
[appveyor]: https://ci.appveyor.com/project/ralphtheninja/deltachat-node-d4bf8