Storing variables to be ignored by git in a js file?

[TimOgden]

Hey all. I have my own smart mirror and I recently created one for my girlfriend.

I’ve set it up so both mine and hers are clones of my forked repo of the MitchMitch MagicMirror repo. I want to be able to make changes on mine and then let her pull those changes so she doesn’t have to mess with the files herself.

The only issue is there are some things specific to our own mirrors, like the latitude and longitude for weather, or the link to our google calendars. The solution I came up with is to create another config file which I’ll add to .gitignore,

// config/variables_config.js
const variables = {
    lat: 40.0000,
    lon: -70.0000
};
export { variables };

So I should be able to use these variables in my usual config.js file, right?

// config/config.js
import { variables } from 'variables_config.js'
...
{
    module: "weather",
    config: {
        lat: variables.lat,
        lon: variables.lon
    }
}

Adding the import statement breaks the config file though. Running npm run config:check returned Parsing error: 'import' and 'export' may appear only with 'sourceType: module'

I need config.js to be a module I guess? Sorry, I’m a programmer but have almost zero javascript experience, so I need some guidance as to how to fix this or what the better solution is here. Thank you!

[karsten13]

@timogden

you could use envsubst < config/config.js.template > config/config.js.

The config.js.template is the config for both which contains variables for the different values. So you could write a script which sets the variables for user1 and then run envsubst for config1 and the same for user2/config2 afterwards.

[sdetweil]

@timogden no straight forward way to do that.

you can write a script to merge your two property files into THE config.js and then launch mm

put the script in front of the npm start in installers/mm sh

which is used by pm2 to launch mm

as u noted, import doesn’t work. config.js is loaded into the browser which doesn’t support require or import

[TimOgden]

@sdetweil Could I import a json file into the config.js file instead? Would that be more straightforward?

[sdetweil]

@timogden no…

[sdetweil]

@timogden

but u can write a quick bash script that can read the variables and replacements from a file and use sed (stream editor) to apply them

https://unix.stackexchange.com/questions/268640/make-multiple-edits-with-a-single-call-to-sed

use a config.model.js which is the one with the funky names to change,
cp that to config.js
loop thru the var list to make the command line, then run it

and exit
then launch mm

[TimOgden]

@sdetweil okay, thanks a lot for the reference material. I’ll work on that and post my solution when I finish. Thanks!

[sdetweil]

@timogden u can look at some of my scripts which get a list from a command then loop

see… restore which reads a file of module urls

https://github.com/sdetweil/MagicMirror-backup-restore

[karsten13]

@timogden

you could use envsubst < config/config.js.template > config/config.js.

The config.js.template is the config for both which contains variables for the different values. So you could write a script which sets the variables for user1 and then run envsubst for config1 and the same for user2/config2 afterwards.

[sdetweil]

@karsten13 same as I suggested different tool

but envsubst needs it’s values in the environment variables… so another hidden thing (to me)

[karsten13]

@sdetweil

only wanted to post this variant …

As background: This is a feature of my docker container where you can use a config.js.template and the variables are defined in the docker-compose.yml which starts the container and before starting mm I run envsubst to make the real config.js.