The CoffeeScript CLI

We’ve played with the REPL and have learned how to compile our CoffeeScript using the command line coffee tool, but the coffee command offers a few other interesting options that we should quickly look at. To see a full list of what the coffee command has to offer, enter the following into your terminal:

> coffee --help

You should see output similar to the following:

Usage: coffee [options] path/to/script.coffee

  -c, --compile      compile to JavaScript and save as .js files
  -i, --interactive  run an interactive CoffeeScript REPL
  -o, --output       set the directory for compiled JavaScript
  -j, --join         concatenate the scripts before compiling
  -w, --watch        watch scripts for changes, and recompile
  -p, --print        print the compiled JavaScript to stdout
  -l, --lint         pipe the compiled JavaScript through JavaScript Lint
  -s, --stdio        listen for and compile scripts over stdio
  -e, --eval         compile a string from the command line
  -r, --require      require a library before executing your script
  -b, --bare         compile without the top-level function wrapper
  -t, --tokens       print the tokens that the lexer produces
  -n, --nodes        print the parse tree that Jison produces
      --nodejs       pass options through to the "node" binary
  -v, --version      display CoffeeScript version
  -h, --help         display this help message