[javascript] How can I include all JavaScript files in a directory via JavaScript file?

I have a bunch of JavaScript files that I would like to include in the page, but I don't want to have to keep writing

<script type="text/javascript" src="js/file.js"></script>

So is there a way to include all files in a directory (unknown size)? Can I do something like...

$.getScript("js/*.js");

... to get all the JavaScript files in the "js" directory? How can I do this using jQuery?

Another option that is pretty short:

<script type="text/javascript">
$.ajax({
  url: "/js/partials",
  success: function(data){
     $(data).find('a:contains(.js)').each(function(){
        // will loop through 
        var partial= $(this).attr("href");
        $.getScript( "/js/partials/" + partial, function( data, textStatus, jqxhr ) {});
     });
  }
});
</script>

What about using a server-side script to generate the script tag lines? Crudely, something like this (PHP) -

$handle = opendir("scripts/");

while (($file = readdir($handle))!== false) {
    echo '<script type="text/javascript" src="' . $file . '"></script>';
}

closedir($handle);

Given that you want a 100% client side solution, in theory you could probably do this:

Via XmlHttpRequest, get the directory listing page for that directory (most web servers return a listing of files if there is no index.html file in the directory).

Parse that file with javascript, pulling out all the .js files. This will of course be sensitive to the format of the directory listing on your web server / web host.

Add the script tags dynamically, with something like this:

function loadScript (dir, file) {
 var scr = document.createElement("script");
 scr.src = dir + file;
 document.body.appendChild(scr);
 }

@jellyfishtree it would be a better if you create one php file which includes all your js files from the directory and then only include this php file via a script tag. This has a better performance because the browser has to do less requests to the server. See this:

javascripts.php:

<?php
   //sets the content type to javascript 
   header('Content-type: text/javascript');

   // includes all js files of the directory
   foreach(glob("packages/*.js") as $file) {
      readfile($file);
   }
?>

index.php:

<script type="text/javascript" src="javascripts.php"></script>

That's it!
Have fun! :)

You could use something like Grunt Include Source. It gives you a nice syntax that preprocesses your HTML, and then includes whatever you want. This also means, if you set up your build tasks correctly, you can have all these includes in dev mode, but not in prod mode, which is pretty cool.

If you aren't using Grunt for your project, there's probably similar tools for Gulp, or other task runners.

You can't do that in JavaScript, since JS is executed in the browser, not in the server, so it didn't know anything about directories or other server resources.

The best option is using a server side script like the one posted by jellyfishtree.

It can be done fully client side, but all javascript file names must be specified. For example, as array items:

function loadScripts(){
   var directory = 'script/';
   var extension = '.js';
   var files = ['model', 'view', 'controller'];  
   for (var file of files){ 
       var path = directory + file + extension; 
       var script = document.createElement("script");
       script.src = path;
       document.body.appendChild(script);
   } 
 }

I was looking for an answer to this question and had my own problems. I found a couple solutions in various places and put them together into my own preferred answer.

function exploreFolder(folderURL,options){
/* options:                 type            explaination

    **REQUIRED** callback:  FUNCTION        function to be called on each file. passed the complete filepath
    then:                   FUNCTION        function to be called after loading all files in folder. passed the number of files loaded
    recursive:              BOOLEAN         specifies wether or not to travel deep into folders
    ignore:                 REGEX           file names matching this regular expression will not be operated on
    accept:                 REGEX           if this is present it overrides the `ignore` and only accepts files matching the regex
*/
$.ajax({
    url: folderURL,
    success: function(data){
        var filesLoaded = 0,
        fileName = '';

        $(data).find("td > a").each(function(){
            fileName = $(this).attr("href");

            if(fileName === '/')
                return;  //to account for the (go up a level) link

            if(/\/\//.test(folderURL + fileName))
                return; //if the url has two consecutive slashes '//'

            if(options.accept){
                if(!options.accept.test(fileName))
                    //if accept is present and the href fails, dont callback
                    return;
            }else if(options.ignore)
                if(options.ignore.test(fileName))
                    //if ignore is present and the href passes, dont callback
                    return;

            if(fileName.length > 1 && fileName.substr(fileName.length-1) === "/")
                if(options.recursive)
                    //only recurse if we are told to
                    exploreFolder(folderURL + fileName, options);
                else
                    return;

            filesLoaded++;
            options.callback(folderURL + fileName);
            //pass the full URL into the callback function
        });
        if(options.then && filesLoaded > 0) options.then(filesLoaded);
    }
});
}

Then you can call it like this:

var loadingConfig = {
    callback: function(file) { console.log("Loaded file: " + file); },
    then: function(numFiles) { console.log("Finished loading " + numFiles + " files"); },
    recursive: true,
    ignore: /^NOLOAD/,
};
exploreFolder('/someFolderURL/', loadingConfig);

This example will call that callback on every file/folder in the specified folder except for ones that start with NOLOAD. If you want to actually load the file into the page then you can use this other helper function that I developed.

function getFileExtension(fname){
    if(fname)
        return fname.substr((~-fname.lastIndexOf(".") >>> 0) + 2);
    console.warn("No file name provided");
}
var loadFile = (function(filename){
    var img = new Image();

    return function(){
        var fileref,
            filename = arguments[0],
            filetype = getFileExtension(filename).toLowerCase();

        switch (filetype) {
            case '':
                return;
            case 'js':
                fileref=document.createElement('script');
                fileref.setAttribute("type","text/javascript");
                fileref.setAttribute("src", filename);
                break;
            case "css":
                fileref=document.createElement("link");
                fileref.setAttribute("rel", "stylesheet");
                fileref.setAttribute("type", "text/css");
                fileref.setAttribute("href", filename);
                break;
            case "jpg":
            case "jpeg":
            case 'png':
            case 'gif':
                img.src = filename;
                break;
            default:
                console.warn("This file type is not supported: "+filetype);
                return;
        }
        if (typeof fileref !== undefined){
            $("head").append(fileref);
            console.log('Loaded file: ' + filename);
        }
    }
})();

This function accepts a JS | CSS | (common image) file and loads it. It will also execute the JS files. The complete call that needs to be run in your script to load all images and* stylesheets and other scripts could look like this:

loadingConfig = {
    callback: loadfile,
    then: function(numFiles) { console.log("Finished loading " + numFiles + " files"); },
    recursive: true,
    ignore: /^NOLOAD/,
};
exploreFolder('/someFolderURL/', loadingConfig);

It works amazingly!

You can't do that in Javascript from the browser... If I were you, I would use something like browserify. Write your code using commonjs modules and then compile the javascript file into one.

In your html load the javascript file that you compiled.