Create a node.js native extension on Windows

Question

I\'m trying to access a particular native Windows API call from within a node.js application. I believe that the best way to do this is to create a native extension / addon

Answer 1

This is now out of date. Today, use nan and node-gyp to write and build native modules that work across platforms.

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I've gone through this pain myself. Here's a guide that helped me get it working. (PDF) Remember that since Node is now officially supported on Windows, Visual Studio is the recommended build tool for Node on Windows.

Basically:

• Download and build the Node source code. (See PDF)
• Create a new VC++ Win32 solution in VS, selecting DLL as the application type in the wizard that follows. Make sure ATL/MFC is unchecked.
• Write your addon. As an example, here's one I wrote that gets Windows' current DNS settings. Specifically, the project's settings file (vcxproj) will be of interest since one of the toughest parts is getting all the library references/include paths set up. You might want to borrow my config and replace D:\node\ with the location of your Node repo.

Answer 2

I think node-ffi will help you. It's simple and it's works.

npm install ffi

var FFI = require('ffi');

function TEXT(text){
   return new Buffer(text, 'ucs2').toString('binary');
}

var user32 = new FFI.Library('user32', {
   'MessageBoxW': [
      'int32', [ 'int32', 'string', 'string', 'int32' ]
   ]
});

var OK_or_Cancel = user32.MessageBoxW(
   0, TEXT('I am Node.JS!'), TEXT('Hello, World!'), 1
);