Installation

This chapter covers installing and verifying the dsviper Node.js binding.

Prerequisites

• Node 16+ (the binding targets the N-API ABI; the test suite uses Node 18+).

• npm (or any package manager that installs from the npm registry).

No C++ toolchain is required to consume the package: it ships prebuilt native binaries (prebuilds/<platform>-<arch>/) and selects the right one for your platform and architecture at load time.

Installing from npm

npm install @digitalsubstrate/dsviper

Note

dsviper is distributed under the Digital Substrate Commercial License 1.2, which grants a free Evaluation License for assessment and training, and a paid Commercial License by written agreement. See License before any commercial use.

Importing the binding

The package is a native addon, so it is loaded with CommonJS require:

const dsviper = require('@digitalsubstrate/dsviper');
const { Value, Type, ValueDouble, CommitDatabase } = dsviper;

From an ES module, a native addon is not statically analysable, so bind it through createRequire rather than a named import:

import { createRequire } from 'node:module';
const require = createRequire(import.meta.url);
const dsviper = require('@digitalsubstrate/dsviper');

Verifying the install

A minimal round-trip — create a typed value and an in-memory database, then close it:

const { Value, Type, CommitDatabase } = require('@digitalsubstrate/dsviper');

const pi = Value.create(Type.DOUBLE, 3.14159);
console.log(pi.representation());   // "3.14159"

const db = CommitDatabase.createInMemory();
console.log(db.isClosed());         // false
db.close();
console.log(db.isClosed());         // true

If that runs without throwing, the binary loaded for your platform and the runtime is reachable.

TypeScript

The package ships index.d.ts, so types resolve automatically — no @types/dsviper to install. Strict-mode projects work out of the box.