Use of tplink-smarthome-api Client in Node-Red function node

[dangruhn]

I'm in interesting in using the api functionality available in the tplink-smarthome-api module function. However, I'm having problems even accessing the Client constructor.
Am I crazy or can this be done and if so, can someone point me the in the right direction?
Any help greatly appreciated.

[dangruhn]

In case anyone ever reads this, I've gotten things to work. It was helpful to read this section from the Node-RED docs:
Using the functionExternalModules option
Here is what the relevant section of my settings.js file looks like (note the relevant functionExternalModules and functionGlobalContext sections):

    /** Allow the Function node to load additional npm modules directly */
    functionExternalModules: true,

    /** Default timeout, in seconds, for the Function node. 0 means no timeout is applied */
    functionTimeout: 0,

    /** The following property can be used to set predefined values in Global Context.
     * This allows extra node modules to be made available with in Function node.
     * For example, the following:
     *    functionGlobalContext: { os:require('os') }
     * will allow the `os` module to be accessed in a Function node using:
     *    global.get("os")
     */
    functionGlobalContext: {
        // os:require('os'),
        tplinkApiModule: require('tplink-smarthome-api')
    },

After that is set up, in my function module I have:

const {Client} = global.get('tplinkApiModule');
const client = new Client();

After that, I can use the client for various operations:

const HallBathMirrorSwitchPromise = client.getDevice({ host: '192.168.1.186' });
HallBathMirrorSwitchPromise.then((device) => { device.getSysInfo().then(outputInfo); });
return;

function outputInfo(info) {
    node.warn("outputInfo");
    node.warn(info);
    return;
}

Note that getting HallBathMirrorSwitchPromise and executing outputInfo happen asynchronously, facilitated by the JavaScript promise/(resolve/reject) mechanism. You will hit the first return statement long before outputInfo is executed, despite what it may appear.