digicompute_redo/doc/modules.md

Modules

Non-API portions of digicompute are loaded as modules to allow them to be easily enabled or disabled. Modules can be manually loaded or required from the API or from another module. Specific modules can be disabled using modules.conf, as documented below.

Managing Modules

Modules listed in the configuration file are automatically loaded at startup unless specifically disabled. For the purpose of listing and/or disabling mods, we've introduced the modules.conf file.

Each module is listed on a new line, as if setting a variable. A module can be disabled or enabled by setting this variable to true or false. If a module is not listed here, or is set to false (disabled), it will not be automatically loaded.

Example:

-- Enabled:
computers = true
-- Disabled:
computers = false

A small API is provided allowing modules to be loaded from another module or from the main API. A module can be force loaded (overrides configuration), or can be loaded with the configuration in mind.

Module API

Modules are places a subdirectories of the modules directory. Each module must have the same name as its reference in the configuration file. Modules must have an init.lua file, where you can load other portions of the module with dofile, or use the API documented below.

get_module_path(name)

Usage: digicompute.get_module_path(<module name (string)>)

Returns the full path of the module or nil if it does not exist. This can be used to check for another module, or to easily access the path of the current module in preparation to load other files with dofile or the likes.

load_module(name)

Usage: digicompute.load_module(<module name (string)>)

Attempts to load a module. If the module path is nil, nil is returned to indicate that the module does not exist. Otherwise, a return value of true indicates a success or that the module has already been loaded. Note: this function overrides any settings in modules.conf, meaning that it will be loaded even if it was disabled. For general use cases, use require_module instead.

require_module(name)

Usage: digicompute.require_module(<module name (string)>)

Passes name to load_module if the mod was not disabled in modules.conf. For further documentation, see load_module.