DENO_DIR, Code Fetch and Cache

DENO_DIR Structure

DENO_DIR contains the following files and directories:

# DIRECTORIES
gen/: Cache for files compiled to JavaScript
deps/: Cache for remote url imported files
  |__ http/: For http imports
  |__ https/: For https imports

# FILES
deno_history.txt: History of Deno REPL

By default, DENO_DIR is located in $HOME/.deno. However, the user could also change its location by modifying the $DENO_DIR environment variable. Explicitly setting DENO_DIR is recommended in production.

gen/

$DENO_DIR/gen/ is used to store JavaScript files that are compiled from source TypeScript files. Such compilation is necessary since V8 does not recognize TypeScript syntax beyond the JS subset.

Each JS file inside of the gen/ folder has a filename that is the hash of its TypeScript source. It also comes with a source map ending with .map.

This cache exists to avoid repeated recompilation each run while the source file is not updated by the user. For example, suppose we have a file hello-world.ts which contains nothing but console.log("Hello world"). During the first run, we will see the message about compilation:

$ deno hello-world.ts
Compiling /Users/kevinqian/my-folder/hello-world.ts
Hello world

However, without changing the file, when you rerun the code:

$ deno hello-world.ts
Hello world

The compilation message is gone. This is because for this run, instead of compiling again, Deno is directly using the cached version in gen/.

The cache load and save code could be found in DenoDir::load_cache and DenoDir::code_cache, from src/deno_dir.rs.

To force Deno to recompile your TypeScript code instead of using the cached version, you could use the --recompile flag.

deps/

$DENO_DIR/deps is used to store files fetched through remote url import. It contains subfolders based on url scheme (currently only http and https), and store files to locations based on the URL path. For example, for the following import (notice that Deno requires the user to specify extensions explicitly):

import { serve } from "https://deno.land/x/std/net/http.ts";

The downloaded http.ts will be locally stored in

$DENO_DIR/deps/https/deno.land/x/std/net/http.ts

Notice that unless the user run the code using --reload flag, http.ts in our case would NEVER be re-downloaded in future runs.

Currently (WARNING: MIGHT BE CHANGED IN THE FUTURE), Deno would keep an eye on the content MIME type of downloaded remote files. In the cases where a file is missing an extension, or having an extension that does not match the content type, Deno would create an extra file ended with .mime to store the MIME type as provided by HTTP response headers. Therefore, if we download a file named a.ts while having Content-Type: text/javascript in the response header, a file a.ts.mime would be created to its side, containing text/javascript. Due to the presence of this .mime file, a.ts would later be imported as if it is a JavaScript file.

Code Fetch Logic

Let's now look into how Deno resolves the code for an import.

Go to src/deno_dir.rs and find the following function:

src/deno_dir.rs

  fn get_source_code(
    self: &Self,
    module_name: &str,
    filename: &str,
  ) -> DenoResult<CodeFetchOutput> {
    let is_module_remote = is_remote(module_name);
    // We try fetch local. Two cases:
    // 1. This is a remote module, but no reload provided
    // 2. This is a local module
    if !is_module_remote || !self.reload {
      debug!(
        "fetch local or reload {} is_module_remote {}",
        module_name, is_module_remote
      );
      match self.fetch_local_source(&module_name, &filename)? {
        Some(output) => {
          debug!("found local source ");
          return Ok(output);
        }
        None => {
          debug!("fetch_local_source returned None");
        }
      }
    }

    // If not remote file, stop here!
    if !is_module_remote {
      debug!("not remote file stop here");
      return Err(DenoError::from(std::io::Error::new(
        std::io::ErrorKind::NotFound,
        format!("cannot find local file '{}'", filename),
      )));
    }

    debug!("is remote but didn't find module");

    // not cached/local, try remote
    let maybe_remote_source =
      self.fetch_remote_source(&module_name, &filename)?;
    if let Some(output) = maybe_remote_source {
      return Ok(output);
    }
    return Err(DenoError::from(std::io::Error::new(
      std::io::ErrorKind::NotFound,
      format!("cannot find remote file '{}'", filename),
    )));
  }

module_name is a string representing the module to be loaded, created based on the paths of the path of the file to be imported, and the file that contains the import statement. Therefore, import "./b.ts" inside of the file imported by import "https://example.com/a.ts" would be treated as if it is import "https://example.com/b.ts".

fetch_local_source goes into the filesystem and try resolving the content based on the filename and its type:

src/deno_dir.rs

fn fetch_local_source(
    self: &Self,
    module_name: &str,
    filename: &str,
  ) -> DenoResult<Option<CodeFetchOutput>> {
    let p = Path::new(&filename);
    let media_type_filename = [&filename, ".mime"].concat();
    let mt = Path::new(&media_type_filename);
    let source_code = match fs::read(p) {
      Err(e) => {
        if e.kind() == std::io::ErrorKind::NotFound {
          return Ok(None);
        } else {
          return Err(e.into());
        }
      }
      Ok(c) => c,
    };
    // .mime file might not exists
    let maybe_content_type_string = fs::read_to_string(&mt).ok();
    // Option<String> -> Option<&str>
    let maybe_content_type_str =
      maybe_content_type_string.as_ref().map(String::as_str);
    Ok(Some(CodeFetchOutput {
      module_name: module_name.to_string(),
      filename: filename.to_string(),
      media_type: map_content_type(&p, maybe_content_type_str),
      source_code,
      maybe_output_code: None,
      maybe_source_map: None,
    }))
  }

while fetch_remote_source goes and downloads the remote file and caches it in $DENO_DIR/deps, possibly also creating the .mime files:

fn fetch_remote_source(
    self: &Self,
    module_name: &str,
    filename: &str,
  ) -> DenoResult<Option<CodeFetchOutput>> {
    let p = Path::new(&filename);
    // We write a special ".mime" file into the `.deno/deps` directory along side the
    // cached file, containing just the media type.
    let media_type_filename = [&filename, ".mime"].concat();
    let mt = Path::new(&media_type_filename);
    eprint!("Downloading {}...", &module_name); // no newline
    let maybe_source = http_util::fetch_sync_string(&module_name);
    if let Ok((source, content_type)) = maybe_source {
      eprintln!(""); // next line
      match p.parent() {
        Some(ref parent) => fs::create_dir_all(parent),
        None => Ok(()),
      }?;
      deno_fs::write_file(&p, &source, 0o666)?;
      // Remove possibly existing stale .mime file
      let _ = std::fs::remove_file(&media_type_filename);
      // Create .mime file only when content type different from extension
      let resolved_content_type = map_content_type(&p, Some(&content_type));
      let ext = p
        .extension()
        .map(|x| x.to_str().unwrap_or(""))
        .unwrap_or("");
      let media_type = extmap(&ext);
      if media_type == msg::MediaType::Unknown
        || media_type != resolved_content_type
      {
        deno_fs::write_file(&mt, content_type.as_bytes(), 0o666)?
      }
      return Ok(Some(CodeFetchOutput {
        module_name: module_name.to_string(),
        filename: filename.to_string(),
        media_type: map_content_type(&p, Some(&content_type)),
        source_code: source,
        maybe_output_code: None,
        maybe_source_map: None,
      }));
    } else {
      eprintln!(" NOT FOUND");
    }
    Ok(None)
  }

Thus, the resolution logic goes as follows:

• If module_name starts with a remote url scheme:

  • If --reload flag is present, force download the file and use it.

  • Otherwise

    • If the local cached file is present, use it.

    • Otherwise, download the file to $DENO_DIR/deps and use it.

• If module_name represents a local source, use the local file.