I'm trying to move from Gulp to Webpack. In Gulp I have task which copies all files and folders from /static/ folder to /build/ folder. How to do the same with Webpack? Do I need some plugin?
Requiring assets using the file-loader module is the way webpack is intended to be used (source). However, if you need greater flexibility or want a cleaner interface, you can also copy static files directly using my copy-webpack-plugin (npm, Github). For your static to build example:
const CopyWebpackPlugin = require('copy-webpack-plugin');
module.exports = {
context: path.join(__dirname, 'your-app'),
plugins: [
new CopyWebpackPlugin({
patterns: [
{ from: 'static' }
]
})
]
};
Compatibility note: If you're using an old version of webpack like webpack#4.x.x, use copy-webpack-plugin#6.x.x. Otherwise use latest.
You don't need to copy things around, webpack works different than gulp. Webpack is a module bundler and everything you reference in your files will be included. You just need to specify a loader for that.
So if you write:
var myImage = require("./static/myImage.jpg");
Webpack will first try to parse the referenced file as JavaScript (because that's the default). Of course, that will fail. That's why you need to specify a loader for that file type. The file- or url-loader for instance take the referenced file, put it into webpack's output folder (which should be build in your case) and return the hashed url for that file.
var myImage = require("./static/myImage.jpg");
console.log(myImage); // '/build/12as7f9asfasgasg.jpg'
Usually loaders are applied via the webpack config:
// webpack.config.js
module.exports = {
...
module: {
loaders: [
{ test: /\.(jpe?g|gif|png|svg|woff|ttf|wav|mp3)$/, loader: "file" }
]
}
};
Of course you need to install the file-loader first to make this work.
If you want to copy your static files you can use the file-loader in this way :
for html files :
in webpack.config.js :
module.exports = {
...
module: {
loaders: [
{ test: /\.(html)$/,
loader: "file?name=[path][name].[ext]&context=./app/static"
}
]
}
};
in your js file :
require.context("./static/", true, /^\.\/.*\.html/);
./static/ is relative to where your js file is.
You can do the same with images or whatever.
The context is a powerful method to explore !!
One advantage that the aforementioned copy-webpack-plugin brings that hasn't been explained before is that all the other methods mentioned here still bundle the resources into your bundle files (and require you to "require" or "import" them somewhere). If I just want to move some images around or some template partials, I don't want to clutter up my javascript bundle file with useless references to them, I just want the files emitted in the right place. I haven't found any other way to do this in webpack. Admittedly it's not what webpack originally was designed for, but it's definitely a current use case.
(#BreakDS I hope this answers your question - it's only a benefit if you want it)
Webpack 5 adds Asset Modules which are essentially replacements for common file loaders. I've copied a relevant portion of the documentation below:
asset/resource emits a separate file and exports the URL. Previously achievable by using file-loader.
asset/inline exports a data URI of the asset. Previously achievable by using url-loader.
asset/source exports the source code of the asset. Previously achievable by using raw-loader.
asset automatically chooses between exporting a data URI and emitting a separate file. Previously achievable by using url-loader with asset size limit.
To add one in you can make your config look like so:
// webpack.config.js
module.exports = {
...
module: {
rules: [
{
test: /\.(jpe?g|gif|png|svg|woff|ttf|wav|mp3)$/,
type: "asset/resource"
}
]
}
};
To control how the files get output, you can use templated paths.
In the config you can set the global template here:
// webpack.config.js
module.exports = {
...
output: {
...
assetModuleFilename: '[path][name].[hash][ext][query]'
}
}
To override for a specific set of assets, you can do this:
// webpack.config.js
module.exports = {
...
module: {
rules: [
{
test: /\.(jpe?g|gif|png|svg|woff|ttf|wav|mp3)$/,
type: "asset/resource"
generator: {
filename: '[path][name].[hash][ext][query]'
}
}
]
}
};
The provided templating will result in filenames that look like build/images/img.151cfcfa1bd74779aadb.png. The hash can be useful for cache busting etc. You should modify to your needs.
Above suggestions are good. But to try to answer your question directly I'd suggest using cpy-cli in a script defined in your package.json.
This example expects node to somewhere on your path. Install cpy-cli as a development dependency:
npm install --save-dev cpy-cli
Then create a couple of nodejs files. One to do the copy and the other to display a checkmark and message.
copy.js
#!/usr/bin/env node
var shelljs = require('shelljs');
var addCheckMark = require('./helpers/checkmark');
var path = require('path');
var cpy = path.join(__dirname, '../node_modules/cpy-cli/cli.js');
shelljs.exec(cpy + ' /static/* /build/', addCheckMark.bind(null, callback));
function callback() {
process.stdout.write(' Copied /static/* to the /build/ directory\n\n');
}
checkmark.js
var chalk = require('chalk');
/**
* Adds mark check symbol
*/
function addCheckMark(callback) {
process.stdout.write(chalk.green(' ✓'));
callback();
}
module.exports = addCheckMark;
Add the script in package.json. Assuming scripts are in <project-root>/scripts/
...
"scripts": {
"copy": "node scripts/copy.js",
...
To run the sript:
npm run copy
The way I load static images and fonts:
module: {
rules: [
....
{
test: /\.(jpe?g|png|gif|svg)$/i,
/* Exclude fonts while working with images, e.g. .svg can be both image or font. */
exclude: path.resolve(__dirname, '../src/assets/fonts'),
use: [{
loader: 'file-loader',
options: {
name: '[name].[ext]',
outputPath: 'images/'
}
}]
},
{
test: /\.(woff(2)?|ttf|eot|svg|otf)(\?v=\d+\.\d+\.\d+)?$/,
/* Exclude images while working with fonts, e.g. .svg can be both image or font. */
exclude: path.resolve(__dirname, '../src/assets/images'),
use: [{
loader: 'file-loader',
options: {
name: '[name].[ext]',
outputPath: 'fonts/'
},
}
]
}
Don't forget to install file-loader to have that working.
You can write bash in your package.json:
# package.json
{
"name": ...,
"version": ...,
"scripts": {
"build": "NODE_ENV=production npm run webpack && cp -v <this> <that> && echo ok",
...
}
}
Most likely you should use CopyWebpackPlugin which was mentioned in kevlened answer. Alternativly for some kind of files like .html or .json you can also use raw-loader or json-loader. Install it via npm install -D raw-loader and then what you only need to do is to add another loader to our webpack.config.js file.
Like:
{
test: /\.html/,
loader: 'raw'
}
Note: Restart the webpack-dev-server for any config changes to take effect.
And now you can require html files using relative paths, this makes it much easier to move folders around.
template: require('./nav.html')
I was stuck here too. copy-webpack-plugin worked for me.
However, 'copy-webpack-plugin' was not necessary in my case (i learned later).
webpack ignores root paths
example
<img src="/images/logo.png'>
Hence, to make this work without using 'copy-webpack-plugin'
use '~' in paths
<img src="~images/logo.png'>
'~' tells webpack to consider 'images' as a module
note:
you might have to add the parent directory of images directory in
resolve: {
modules: [
'parent-directory of images',
'node_modules'
]
}
Visit https://vuejs-templates.github.io/webpack/static.html
The webpack config file (in webpack 2) allows you to export a promise chain, so long as the last step returns a webpack config object. See promise configuration docs. From there:
webpack now supports returning a Promise from the configuration file. This allows to do async processing in you configuration file.
You could create a simple recursive copy function that copies your file, and only after that triggers webpack. E.g.:
module.exports = function(){
return copyTheFiles( inpath, outpath).then( result => {
return { entry: "..." } // Etc etc
} )
}
lets say all your static assets are in a folder "static" at the root level and you want copy them to the build folder maintaining the structure of subfolder, then
in your entry file) just put
//index.js or index.jsx
require.context("!!file?name=[path][name].[ext]&context=./static!../static/", true, /^\.\/.*\.*/);
In my case I used webpack for a wordpress plugin to compress js files, where the plugin files are already compressed and need to skip from the process.
optimization: {
minimize: false,
},
externals: {
"jquery": "jQuery",
},
entry: glob.sync('./js/plugin/**.js').reduce(function (obj, el) {
obj[path.parse(el).name] = el;
return obj
}, {}),
output: {
path: path.resolve(__dirname, './js/dist/plugin'),
filename: "[name].js",
clean: true,
},
That used to copy the js file as it is to the build folder. Using any other methods like file-loader and copy-webpack create issues with that.
Hope it will help someone.
I have a static Javascript project (no react, vue, etc.) where I am trying to transpile, bundle, and minify my js with webpack. I would like to have bundle.js on my layout page which will include a bunch of global js that runs on all pages and then a page_x.js file that will be on individual pages as needed. The bundle.js file might consist of several other files and should be transpiled to es5 and minified.
With my current setup, the files are running twice. I'm not sure how to fix this. I want the file included globally but also want to be able to call the function as needed. If I delete the import statement from page.js I get the console error, "doSomething" is undefined. If I only include page.js on page.html and not on _layout.html common.js is only logged out on page.html. I want "common" to be logged once on every page and I want doSomething() to be available only on page.js.
Here is an example of it running twice:
common.js
console.log("common");
export function doSomething() {
console.log("do something");
}
page.js
import {doSomething} from "/common.js";
$(button).click(doSomething);
The expected output on page load (before clicking anything) would be:
"common"
Instead I'm seeing
"common"
"common"
My webpack.config.js file is as follows:
const path = require("path");
const MiniCssExtractPlugin = require("mini-css-extract-plugin");
const RemoveEmptyScriptsPlugin = require("webpack-remove-empty-scripts");
const { CleanWebpackPlugin } = require("clean-webpack-plugin");
const WebpackWatchedGlobEntries = require("webpack-watched-glob-entries-plugin");
const CssnanoPlugin = require("cssnano");
const TerserPlugin = require("terser-webpack-plugin");
const dirName = "wwwroot/dist";
module.exports = (env, argv) => {
return {
mode: argv.mode === "production" ? "production" : "development",
entry: WebpackWatchedGlobEntries.getEntries(
[
path.resolve(__dirname, "src/scripts/**/*.js"),
path.resolve(__dirname, "src/scss/maincss.scss")
]),
output: {
filename: "[name].js",
path: path.resolve(__dirname, dirName)
},
devtool: "source-map",
module: {
rules: [
{
test: /\.s[c|a]ss$/,
use:
[
MiniCssExtractPlugin.loader,
"css-loader?sourceMap",
{
loader: "postcss-loader?sourceMap",
options: {
postcssOptions: {
plugins: [
CssnanoPlugin
],
config: true
},
sourceMap: true
}
},
{ loader: "sass-loader", options: { sourceMap: true } },
]
},
{
test: /\.(svg|gif|png|eot|woff|ttf)$/,
use: [
"url-loader",
],
},
{
test: /\.m?js$/,
exclude: /(node_modules|bower_components)/,
use: {
loader: "babel-loader",
options: {
presets: ["#babel/preset-env"]
}
}
}
]
},
plugins: [
new WebpackWatchedGlobEntries(),
new CleanWebpackPlugin(),
new RemoveEmptyScriptsPlugin(),
new MiniCssExtractPlugin({
filename: "[name].css"
})
],
optimization: {
minimize: true,
minimizer: [
new TerserPlugin({
extractComments: false,
})
]
}
};
};
Any help would be greatly appreciated.
Webpack is about building a dependency graph of your application files and finally producing one single bundle.
With your configuration, you are actually trying to use Webpack as a Multi-entry object configuration as explained in Webpack documents. The culprit here is WebpackWatchedGlobEntries plugin. For each file matched by a glob pattern, it would create a bundle which is not what you want ever. For exmaple, if you have following structure:
- src/scripts
- common.js
- some
- page1.js
- other
- page2.js
This plugin will produce multi-page application. So, you configuration:
entry: WebpackWatchedGlobEntries.getEntries(
[
path.resolve(__dirname, "src/scripts/**/*.js"),
path.resolve(__dirname, "src/scss/maincss.scss")
]),
will internally return an object as:
entry: {
"common": "src/scripts/common.js",
"some/page1": "src/scripts/some/page1.js",
"other/page2": "src/scripts/other/page2.js"
}
It means if you import common.js into page1.js and page2.js, then you are in producing three bundles and all those bundles will possess the common module which would be executed three times.
The solution really depends on how to you want to configure your bundle:
If you need to bundle as a multi-page application, then you must use splitChunk optimization that allows you to create page specific bundle while keeping shared code separate (common.js for example). Keep in mind that you do not really need to manually create a separate bundle for common.js. with split chunks, Webpack should do that automatically for you.
If you need a single bundle, you can literally go ahead and create a single bundle for entire application (most typical workflow with Webpack) and use the same bundle on each page. You can have a common function like run that can figure the code to call using URL or some unique page specific identifier. In modern SPA, that is done using routing module.
What I will suggest is to keep things simple. Do not use WebpackWatchedGlobEntries plugin. That will complicate things if you are not familiar with Webpack. Keep entry simple like this:
entry: {
// Note that you don't need common module here. It would be picked up as part of your page1 and page2 dependency graph
"page1": "src/scripts/some/page1.js",
"page2": "src/scripts/other/page2.js"
}
Then, enable the splitchunk optimization as:
optimization: {
splitChunks: {
chunks: 'all'
}
}
Again, there are multiple options to choose from. You can read more details here about preventing code duplication.
I don't understand why this is being so complicated I want my project to have 2 separate work spaces where one is a library that will be distributed and the other will be used for testing... this is how i have the file structure
project
--engine
---math
----vec2.js
---dist
----library.js
---main.js
--sandbox
---main.js
I want to build the "engine" project with webpack and es6 modules so I get a "library" file that can be used in "sandbox".
The "engine" main file would look something like this
import vec2 from './math/vec2';
export default class Library {
constructor() {
this.vec2 = vec2;
}
}
An then the sandbox main file would look something like this
import lib from '../engine/dist/library';
const game = new lib();
The problem is when I build the "library.js" file with webpack and import it in the "sandbox" main file I can't call any of the classes therein. I get this error.
Uncaught TypeError: o.default is not a constructor
at Object.<anonymous> (library.js:1)
at e (library.js:1)
at library.js:1
at library.js:1
My webpack.config.js file looks like this
var webpack = require('webpack');
module.exports = {
context: __dirname,
entry: __dirname+"/main.js",
output: {
path: __dirname+"/dist",
filename: "library.js"
},
module: {
loaders: [
{
test: /\.js$/,
exclude: /(node_modules)/,
loader: 'babel-loader',
query: {
presets: ['es2015']
}
}
]
},
plugins: [
new webpack.optimize.UglifyJsPlugin()
]
};
I must be missing some configuration webpack needs or some plugin that will make this work. I simply want to build the library with webpack using es6 modules so it can be used in another project but I have no idea how to configure it. I'm using babel for transpilling es6 to es5
You need to configure output.libraryTarget. In this case the target commonjs-module is appropriate. So your output would be:
output: {
path: __dirname+"/dist",
filename: "library.js",
libraryTarget: "commonjs-module"
},
The different targets are described in the docs. And you might also want to read Guides - Authoring Libraries.
I currently have a few variables in a js file and would like to put it in its own bundle outside of my main app.bundle.js.
config.js
export const url1= 'testing1';
export const url2= 'test2';
I have a very basic webpack like this and added the new entry(This is just an example)
module.exports = {
{
entry: {
app: [path.resolve(__dirname, './src/index.js')],
config: [path.resolve(__dirname, './config.js')] <---here
},
output: {
filename: '[name].js',
path: __dirname + '/built'
}
}
module.loaders: [
{
// "test" is commonly used to match the file extension
test: /\.jsx$/,
// "include" is commonly used to match the directories
include: [
path.resolve(__dirname, "app/src"),
path.resolve(__dirname, "app/test")
],
// "exclude" should be used to exclude exceptions
// try to prefer "include" when possible
// the "loader"
loader: "babel-loader"
}]
finally I have a src/file.js that wants to use the config.js (I'm currently doing this but i am not sure if this is correct)
import { url1, url2} from '../../config.js';
my app bundle will bundle all the js files expanded from my index.js(which is all my /src .js files).
My config.js is outside of the src folder however I want one of my js files from src to use those variables that I have set in the config.js.
My result does produce a conf.bundle.js with the variables but it also seems to be bundled into the app.bundle.js as well.
So now my question is how would I be able to use the config.bundle.js variables on my app.bundle.js without having a copy of config.js in the app.bundle.js
Adding CommonChunksPlugin solves this issue.
I am using Webpack's module.loaders and file-loader to copy several js-files when compiling:
module.loaders = [
{ test: /app\/locale\/moment\/.*\.js$/, loader: "file-loader?name=locale/moment/[name].[ext]" }
];
This works fine for me.
I want to do the same thing with JSON-files:
module.loaders = [
{ test: /app\/locale\/.*\.json$/, loader: "file-loader?name=locale/[name].[ext]" }
];
But this time it doesn't do anything.
Why does Webpack make a difference between js- and json-files when using the file-loader?
This is an adaptation of my answer to my own similar question.
You can copy JSON files via file-loader by adding the following code to you Webpack config:
module: {
rules: [
// ...
{
test: /\.json$/,
loader: 'file-loader?name=[name].json'
}
// ...
]
}
There are two nuances here: 1) file-loader will only copy files that are imported/required somewhere in your code and 2) file-loader emits a path to where the file was loaded, rather than the contents of the file itself.
So, to copy a JSON file you'll first need to import it, for example:
const configFile = require('../config.json');
Since file-loader emits a path to the where the file was loader, configFile has the value "/config.json".
Now the contents of the JSON file can be loaded however you like, such as with jsonfile
jsonfile.readFile(configFile, function(err, obj) {
console.log(obj);
});
or with Angular's HTTP package
http.get(configFile).map(res => res.json()).catch((error: any): any => {
// ...
}).subscribe(obj => {
console.log(obj);
});