Can I pass arguments to a gulp task?

Question

I'm using gulp in Visual Studio, as a client-side build tool only.

I have lots of tasks which are common across various projects, so I moved them to separate files, and reference them in a project's gulpfile.js as follows:

require("../path/to/task/files/fooCommon.js");  // has a task called "fooCommon"

And then in the gulpfile.js I wrap it in a task:

gulp.task("foo", ["fooCommon"], function () { });

This works nicely, and I can reuse common tasks across projects.

BUT, some tasks require configurations which are only accessible in gulpfile.js - how can I pass them as arguments to a task?

Answer 1

Two things come to mind. The first would be that instead of fooCommon.js creating tasks, it could create something usable as a gulp plugin, so then to use it, you just pass your config arguments to the plugin. If that doesn't fit well in this case, then you can move your task logic into a wrapper function, e.g.

fooCommon.js

module.exports = function(gulp, config){
    gulp.task("fooCommon", function () {
        // Use the config here
    });
};

Gulpfile

// Define whatever config you need
var gulp = require('gulp');

var config = {...}

var taskCreator = require('../path/to/task/files/fooCommon.js');

// Call the function in 'fooCommon.js', which will be passed the config, and
// will create all the tasks you have in common.
taskCreator(gulp, config);

// Register a task depending on the task created by the exported function.
gulp.task("foo", ["fooCommon"], function () { });