In my Node.js app, I'm passing in variables to functions by using require like so:

console.log(require('../controllers/controller')(variable)); // undefined

However, when I don't pass in the variable, it logs as a function, like so:

console.log(require('../controllers/controller')); // [Function]

My controllers are defined like this:

var Controller = function (variable) {
  this.variable = variable;
};

Controller.prototype.method = function (someInput, callback) {
  // can access this.variable;
};

module.exports = Controller;

I also get this error:

TypeError: Object function (variable) {
  this.variable = variable;
} has no method 'method'

Any idea as to where I'm going wrong here? I'm stuck at this step and not sure how to debug further.

In my Node.js app, I'm passing in variables to functions by using require like so:

console.log(require('../controllers/controller')(variable)); // undefined

However, when I don't pass in the variable, it logs as a function, like so:

console.log(require('../controllers/controller')); // [Function]

My controllers are defined like this:

var Controller = function (variable) {
  this.variable = variable;
};

Controller.prototype.method = function (someInput, callback) {
  // can access this.variable;
};

module.exports = Controller;

I also get this error:

TypeError: Object function (variable) {
  this.variable = variable;
} has no method 'method'

Any idea as to where I'm going wrong here? I'm stuck at this step and not sure how to debug further.

• javascript
• node.js
• express

2 Answers 2

require('../controllers/controller') is a function. When you use it without new keyword it does not return anything. But when you use new function() it acts like a constuctor of the object. So what you want to do is to use new keyword if you need an object to be returned with its prototype methods.

var Controller = require('../controllers/controller'),
controller = new Controller(variable);

this is an old thread, but I had this issue and the accepted answer didn't help me.

To create a module with a parameter, I use this code:

module.exports = function(pName) {
  return {
    test1: function() {
       console.log('In test 1 '+pName);
    },
    test2: function() {
       console.log('In test 2 '+pName);
    }
  };
};

And to call the module's functions:

var testModule = require('testModule')('David');
testModule.test1();
testModule.test2();