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The basics of Deno

Basic deno commands​

  • deno upgrade: upgrades deno to latest stable version
  • deno init <project-name>: scaffolds out a typescript project
  • deno uninstall <package>: uninstalls a package
  • deno install: installs all dependencies
  • deno add <package>: installs a package
  • deno remove <package>: removes a package

Running files and permissions​

  • deno run <file>: runs a file
  • deno run --watch <file>: runs file in watch mode

You also have these security options in place, because by default deno prevents reading and writing from files. To override this behavior, use these flags:

  • deno run -A <file>: bypasses all security
  • deno run -R <file>: allows reading
  • deno run -W <file>: allows writing
  • deno run -E <file>: allows access environment variables
  • deno run -N <file>: allows access to the network.

To deny reading and writing to specific files or directories, you can use these options:

  • --deny-read=<filepath>: denies reading the specified filepath or folderpath
  • --deny-write=<filepath>: denies writing to the specified filepath or folderpath

Running scripts​

To run a specific script from your deno.json, you would use the deno run command and then provide the script name:

deno.json
{
  "tasks": {
    "dev": "deno run -A --watch main.ts"
  },
}
deno task <task-name>

In the above example, you would run deno task dev.

Running tasks asynchronously

You can run two tasks asynchronously or concurrently by connecting them with an ampersand.

# runs task1 and task2 concurrently
deno task task1 & deno task task2

Environment variables​

To load environment variables from a .env file into your project so you can access them during runtime, you need to use the --env option when running a file with deno:

deno run --env main.ts

You can get environment variables programmatically with Deno.env.get(var_name).

Format and linting​

  • deno fmt: formats your code
  • deno lint: lints your code
  • deno lint --fix: fixes incompatibility with node modules
  • deno check: type checks your code

Compile into executable​

  • deno compile <file>: compiles a js file into an executable

Deno Config​

Importing modules​

From NPM​

When trying to install a package from npm, you have to specify that it's from npm by prefixing the package name with npm:.

deno add npm:chalk

You can then use it like so:

import chalk from "chalk";
console.log(chalk.red("bruh"));

Or you could just import like so, removing the need to explicitly install a package:

import chalk from "npm:chalk";

From jsr​

When downloading type declarations​

When you download a package that needs to use type declarations, you can just specify the type declarations package like so instead of separately downloading it.

// @deno-types="npm:@types/express@^4.17"
import express from "npm:express@^4.17";

// @ts-types="npm:@types/lodash"
import * as _ from "npm:lodash";

Importing native node modules​

When importing native node modules, you need to prefix them with node:

// ❌
import * as fs from "fs";
import * as http from "http";

// ✅
import * as fs from "node:fs";
import * as http from "node:http";