We Keep Coding

Dynamically loading a file based on an environment variable in Webpacker (Rails 6)

First time for me on Stack Overflow, please be kind ;) I'll try to do my best!
The context:
I am working on a Rails 6 app with webpacker. This is a program that will be shared by several companies and in order to apply the 'one code, multiple setups' paradigm, we decided to move all the company related configuration files to separate folders, and to put the company name as a variable in our .env file. We need to change some config variables as well as some geofencing data (so our customers can create a new delivery to some address). Basically that's what it looks like:
Project folder
| config
| companies
| a_first_company
| rails_config.rb
| geofencing.js
| a_second_company
| rails_config.rb
| geofencing.js
| ....
In the .env file:
COMPANY=a_first_company
And in the rails configuration (application.rb), we are using a simple:
require_relative "companies/#{ENV['COMPANY']}/rails_config"
But now, here comes the JS part! And I am running into trouble.
The problem:
I would like to include dynamically a JSON object in an existing script. A sample geofencing.js looks like that:
module.exports = {
"countries": ["be"],
"polygon": [
50.8917729, 4.3004608,
...
50.9162381, 4.3450928,
50.8917729, 4.3004608
]
}
And I am trying to import it as a geofencing variable in my existing address autocompletion script:
/app/javascript/plugins/places.js
// I know it doesn't work that way, but basically that what I would like to do:
const geofencing = require(`/config/companies/${process.env.COMPANY}/geofencing`);
...
const initPlaceAutocomplete = () => {
...
var placesAutocomplete = places(
{
// And use the variable here...
insidePolygon: [geofencing.polygon],
type: 'address',
// And there...
countries: geofencing.countries,
templates: {
value: (suggestion) => {
return suggestion.name;
}
},
container: addressInput
}
);
...
}
export { initPlaceAutocomplete };
This file is imported in the view with a <%= javascript_pack_tag 'delivery_new' %>:
/app/javascript/packs/delivery_new.js
import { initPlaceAutocomplete } from '../plugins/places';
initPlaceAutocomplete();
...
The solution (that I haven't found yet):
I have tried several things, like importing the file in the webpack config (/config/webpack/environment.js), just like in the ProvidePlugin documentation:
const {environment} = require('#rails/webpacker')
const path = require('path');
const webpack = require('webpack')
environment.plugins.prepend('Provide',
new webpack.ProvidePlugin({
$: 'jquery',
jQuery: 'jquery',
Popper: ['popper.js', 'default'],
geofencing: path.resolve(path.join(__dirname, '..', '..', 'config', 'companies', process.env['COMPANY'], 'geofencing'))
})
)
module.exports = environment
... But it didn't work.
I also tried various places to import 'geofencing' in several places, with always the same result in the Chrome console: Uncaught ReferenceError: geofencing is not defined.
I noticed, though, that I had access to the process.env variables in the places.js script: writing console.log(process.env['COMPANY']); in the file prompts me the company name in the dev console when I reload the page in Chrome.
Apart from this, I have to say that I am lost. I am basically a newbie to the Webpack 'magic' ;)
Please tell me if you need more info about my setup.
Thanks in advance for your help!

You should be able to require modules using interpolation in the require() expression similar to your example. Try using a relative path, e.g. (assuming parent directories are siblings):
require(`../config/${process.env.COMPANY}/geofencing`)
The above expression will add only the COMPANY geofencing module to the bundle.
If you wish this to be dynamic, webpack can resolve the interpolation at runtime assuming the require paths are scoped to a directory; you're already doing this here with "../config/". As a result, webpack will include all COMPANY geofencing modules in the bundle. As for usage, I might move the require statement inside a function:
function initPlaceAutocomplete(company) {
const geofencing = require(`../config/${company}/geofencing`)
// ...
}
// usage
import { initPlaceAutocomplete } from "../plugins/places"
initPlaceAutocomplete(process.env.COMPANY)
At this point, this could is a good use case for dynamic imports, i.e., webpack supports the TC39 proposal for dynamically loading modules at runtime.
Instead of require("../config..."), you can use the import() function syntax. Unlike require(), the import() function syntax resolves asynchronously.
Now webpack will bundle all the COMPANY geofencing modules, but as separate "chunks" to keep the size of your initial script down. webpack will insert code to resolve these "chunks" asynchronously at runtime. To support this, the import() expression returns a Promise so, I'm using the async/await syntax here as a result.
async function initPlaceAutocomplete(company) {
const geofencing = await import(`../companies/${company}/config`)
// ...
}

How to include manual import() in Webpack Bundle

I am quite new to Webpack, so bear with me if thats a stupid question.
My goal is to transform my old, AMD based codebase to a ES6 Module based solution. What I am struggling with is handling dynamic import()s. So my app router works on a module basis, i.e. each route is mapped to a module path and then required. Since I know what modules will be included, I just add those dynamically imported modules to my r.js configuration and am able to build everything in a single file, with all require calls still working.
Now, I am trying to do the same with ES6 modules and Webpack. With my devmode this is no problem as I can just replace require() with import(). However I cannot get this to work with bundling. Either Webpack splits my code (and still fails to load the dynamic module anyways), or - if I use the Array format for the entry config, the dynamic module is included in the bundle but loading still fails: Error: Cannot find module '/src/app/DynClass.js'
This is how my Webpack config looks like:
const webpack = require('webpack');
const path = require('path');
module.exports = {
mode: "development",
entry: ['./main.js', './app/DynClass.js'],
output: {
filename: 'main.js',
path: path.resolve(__dirname, "../client/")
},
resolve: {
alias: {
"/src": path.resolve(__dirname, '')
}
},
module: {
rules: [
{
test: /\.tpl$/i,
use: 'raw-loader',
},
]
}
};
So basically I want to tell Webpack: "hey, there is another module (or more) that is to be loaded dynamically and I want it to be included in the bundle"
How can I do this?

So yeah, after much fiddling there seems to be a light at the end of the tunnel. Still, this is not a 100% solution and it is surely not for the faint of heart, as it is quite ugly and fragile. But still I want to share my approach with you:
1) manual parsing of my routes config
My router uses a config file looking like this:
import StaticClass from "/src/app/StaticClass.js";
export default {
StaticClass: {
match: /^\//,
module: StaticClass
},
DynClass: {
match: /^\//,
module: "/src/app/DynClass.js"
}
};
So as you can see the export is an object, with keys acting as the route id, and an object that contains the matches (regex based) and the module which should be executed by the router if the route matches. I can feed my router with both a Constructor function (or an object) for modules which are available immediatly (i.e. contained in the main chunk) or if the module value is a string, this means that the router has to load this module dynamically by using the path specified in the string.
So as I know what modules could be potentially loaded (but not if and when) I can now parse this file within my build process and transform the route config to something webpack can understand:
const path = require("path");
const fs = require("fs");
let routesSource = fs.readFileSync(path.resolve(__dirname, "app/routes.js"), "utf8");
routesSource = routesSource.substr(routesSource.indexOf("export default"));
routesSource = routesSource.replace(/module:\s*((?!".*").)*$/gm, "module: undefined,");
routesSource = routesSource.replace(/\r?\n|\r/g, "").replace("export default", "var routes = ");
eval(routesSource);
let dummySource = Object.entries(routes).reduce((acc, [routeName, routeConfig]) => {
if (typeof routeConfig.module === "string") {
return acc + `import(/* webpackChunkName: "${routeName}" */"${routeConfig.module}");`;
}
return acc;
}, "") + "export default ''";
(Yeah I know this is quite ugly and also a bit brittle so this surely could be done better)
Essentially I create a new, virtual module where every route entry which demands a dynamic import is translated, so:
DynClass: {
match: /^\//,
module: "/src/app/DynClass.js"
}
becomes:
import(/* webpackChunkName: "DynClass" */"/src/app/DynClass.js");
So the route id simply becomes the name of the chunk!
2) including the virtual module in the build
For this I use the virtual-module-webpack-plugin:
plugins: [
new VirtualModulePlugin({
moduleName: "./app/dummy.js",
contents: dummySource
})
],
Where dummySource is just a string containing the sourcecode of my virtual module I just have generated. Now, this module is pulled in and the "virtual imports" can be processed by webpack. But wait, I still need to import the dummy module, but I do not have any in my development mode (where I use everything natively, so no loaders).
So in my main code I do the following:
let isDev = false;
/** #remove */
isDev = true;
/** #endremove */
if (isDev) { import('./app/dummy.js'); }
Where "dummy.js" is just an empty stub module while I am in development mode. The parts between that special comments are removed while building (using the webpack-loader-clean-pragma loader), so while webpack "sees" the import for dummy.js, this code will not be executed in the build itself since then isDev evaluates to false. And since we already defined a virtual module with the same path, the virtual module is included while building just like I want, and of course all dependencies are resolved as well.
3) Handling the actual loading
For development, this is quite easy:
import routes from './app/routes.js';
Object.entries(routes).forEach(async ([routeId, route]) => {
if (typeof route.module === "function") {
new route.module;
} else {
const result = await import(route.module);
new result.default;
}
});
(Note that this is not the actual router code, just enough to help me with my PoC)
Well, but for the build I need something else, so I added some code specific to the build environment:
/** #remove */
const result = await import(route.module);
new result.default;
/** #endremove */
if (!isDev) {
if (typeof route.module === "string") { await __webpack_require__.e(routeId); }
const result = __webpack_require__(route.module.replace("/src", "."));
new result.default;
}
Now, the loading code for the dev environment is just stripped out, and there is another loading code that uses webpack internally. I also check if the module value is a function or string, and if it is the latter I invoke the internal require.ensure function to load the correct chunk: await __webpack_require__.e(routeId);. Remember that I named my chunks when generating the virtual module? Now thats why I still can find them now!
4) more needs to be done
Another thing I encountered is when several dynamically loaded modules have the same dependencies, webpack tries to generate more chunks with names like module1~module2.bundle.js, breaking my build. To counter this, I needed to make sure that all those shared modules go into a specific named bundle I called "shared":
optimization: {
splitChunks: {
chunks: "all",
name: "shared"
}
}
And when in production mode, I simply load this chunk manually before any dynamic modules depending on it are requested:
if (!isDev) {
await __webpack_require__.e("shared");
}
Again, this code only runs in production mode!
Finally, I have to prevent webpack renaming my modules (and chunks) to something like "1", "2" etc, but rather keep the names I just have defined:
optimization: {
namedChunks: true,
namedModules: true
}
Se yeah, there you have it! As I said this wasn't pretty but seems to work, at least with my simplified test setup. I really hope there aren't any blockers ahead of me when I do all the rest (like ESLint, SCSS etc)!

Load text as JavaScript object in Node.js

I have a javascript file for node.js:
module.exports = {
someString: 'blblalb'
}
I want to able to read the file as a javascript object, using fs.readFileSync. I can't use require because I am using a variable that may be modified in runtime to load the file.
Is that possible?

You can use eval('JavaScript string') but is highly recommended not to. It is a serious security risk if you cannot 100% trust the source of the text. If a malicious user figures out a way to modify the text they have complete control of your system. It is not a path I would take or recommend.
const text = 'console.log("Hello")';
eval(text);
If I saw that code when I was doing a code review we would definitely be having some words.

it's possible to evaluate a file or string variable as child module in hacky yet valid way.
The problem is that Node.js module environment should be unaware of these operations. Child module may load other modules and contain require(...), it will fail if there is no require function (there is none if it is evaluated with vm) or it uses wrong module relative path (this will happen with eval), also there will be no dedicated module.exports for a module. This can be fixed by wrapping module source with Node.js module wrapper that was rewired to match child module location.
const fs = require('fs');
const Module = require('module');
const path = require('path');
const childModuleAbsPath = path.resolve('./foo/bar.js');
const childModuleBody = fs.readFileSync(childModuleAbsPath);
const childModuleObj = { exports: {} };
const { dir: childModuleDirname, base: childModuleFilename } = path.parse(childModuleAbsPath);
const childRequire = modulePath => module.require(childModuleAbsPath);
require('vm').runInThisContext(Module.wrap(childModuleBody))(
childModuleObj.exports,
childRequire,
childModuleObj,
childModuleDirname,
childModuleFilename
);
In this case childModuleObj.exports.someString === 'blblalb' after bar child module was evaluated.
This is XY problem that should be addressed in another way.
If the intention is to reevaluate a module with new variables, this can be done by invalidating Node module cache by modifying require.cache, e.g. with decache:
decache('./foo/bar');
const reloadedBar = require('./foo/bar');

Webpack's define plugin: variable is not defined

I'm trying to pass some environment related variables into my React components using Webpack's DefinePlugin. Client side part works great, server side part returns 'MYVARIABLE is not defined'.
I'm using Webpack's Node.JS api. Important parts are below. Am I doing something wrong? Thanks
webpack.config.js
...
webpackConfig.plugins = [
new webpack.DefinePlugin({
MYVARIABLE: 'test-value'
})
]
...
server.js
...
import webpack from 'webpack'
import webpackConfig from '../config/webpack.config'
...
var compiler = webpack(webpackConfig)
...
component file
...
console.log(MYVARIABLE)
...
result
ReferenceError: MYVARIABLE is not defined
....

You have to JSON.stringify('your-value').
According https://webpack.js.org/plugins/define-plugin/ :
because the plugin does a direct text replacement, the value given to
it must include actual quotes inside of the string itself. Typically,
this is done either with either alternate quotes, such as
'"production"', or by using JSON.stringify('production').
so your webpack.config.js should be...
webpackConfig.plugins = [
new webpack.DefinePlugin({
MYVARIABLE: JSON.stringify('test-value')
})
]

Define global variable with webpack

Is it possible to define a global variable with webpack to result something like this:
var myvar = {};
All of the examples I saw were using external file require("imports?$=jquery!./file.js")

There are several way to approach globals:
1. Put your variables in a module.
Webpack evaluates modules only once, so your instance remains global and carries changes through from module to module. So if you create something like a globals.js and export an object of all your globals then you can import './globals' and read/write to these globals. You can import into one module, make changes to the object from a function and import into another module and read those changes in a function. Also remember the order things happen. Webpack will first take all the imports and load them up in order starting in your entry.js. Then it will execute entry.js. So where you read/write to globals is important. Is it from the root scope of a module or in a function called later?
config.js
export default {
FOO: 'bar'
}
somefile.js
import CONFIG from './config.js'
console.log(`FOO: ${CONFIG.FOO}`)
Note: If you want the instance to be new each time, then use an ES6 class. Traditionally in JS you would capitalize classes (as opposed to the lowercase for objects) like
import FooBar from './foo-bar' // <-- Usage: myFooBar = new FooBar()
2. Use Webpack's ProvidePlugin.
Here's how you can do it using Webpack's ProvidePlugin (which makes a module available as a variable in every module and only those modules where you actually use it). This is useful when you don't want to keep typing import Bar from 'foo' again and again. Or you can bring in a package like jQuery or lodash as global here (although you might take a look at Webpack's Externals).
Step 1. Create any module. For example, a global set of utilities would be handy:
utils.js
export function sayHello () {
console.log('hello')
}
Step 2. Alias the module and add to ProvidePlugin:
webpack.config.js
var webpack = require("webpack");
var path = require("path");
// ...
module.exports = {
// ...
resolve: {
extensions: ['', '.js'],
alias: {
'utils': path.resolve(__dirname, './utils') // <-- When you build or restart dev-server, you'll get an error if the path to your utils.js file is incorrect.
}
},
plugins: [
// ...
new webpack.ProvidePlugin({
'utils': 'utils'
})
]
}
Now just call utils.sayHello() in any js file and it should work. Make sure you restart your dev-server if you are using that with Webpack.
Note: Don't forget to tell your linter about the global, so it won't complain. For example, see my answer for ESLint here.
3. Use Webpack's DefinePlugin.
If you just want to use const with string values for your globals, then you can add this plugin to your list of Webpack plugins:
new webpack.DefinePlugin({
PRODUCTION: JSON.stringify(true),
VERSION: JSON.stringify("5fa3b9"),
BROWSER_SUPPORTS_HTML5: true,
TWO: "1+1",
"typeof window": JSON.stringify("object")
})
Use it like:
console.log("Running App version " + VERSION);
if(!BROWSER_SUPPORTS_HTML5) require("html5shiv");
4. Use the global window object (or Node's global).
window.foo = 'bar' // For SPA's, browser environment.
global.foo = 'bar' // Webpack will automatically convert this to window if your project is targeted for web (default), read more here: https://webpack.js.org/configuration/node/
You'll see this commonly used for polyfills, for example: window.Promise = Bluebird
5. Use a package like dotenv.
(For server side projects) The dotenv package will take a local configuration file (which you could add to your .gitignore if there are any keys/credentials) and adds your configuration variables to Node's process.env object.
// As early as possible in your application, require and configure dotenv.
require('dotenv').config()
Create a .env file in the root directory of your project. Add environment-specific variables on new lines in the form of NAME=VALUE. For example:
DB_HOST=localhost
DB_USER=root
DB_PASS=s1mpl3
That's it.
process.env now has the keys and values you defined in your .env file.
var db = require('db')
db.connect({
host: process.env.DB_HOST,
username: process.env.DB_USER,
password: process.env.DB_PASS
})
Notes
Regarding Webpack's Externals, use it if you want to exclude some modules from being included in your built bundle. Webpack will make the module globally available but won't put it in your bundle. This is handy for big libraries like jQuery (because tree shaking external packages doesn't work in Webpack) where you have these loaded on your page already in separate script tags (perhaps from a CDN).

I was about to ask the very same question. After searching a bit further and decyphering part of webpack's documentation I think that what you want is the output.library and output.libraryTarget in the webpack.config.js file.
For example:
js/index.js:
var foo = 3;
var bar = true;
webpack.config.js
module.exports = {
...
entry: './js/index.js',
output: {
path: './www/js/',
filename: 'index.js',
library: 'myLibrary',
libraryTarget: 'var'
...
}
Now if you link the generated www/js/index.js file in a html script tag you can access to myLibrary.foo from anywhere in your other scripts.

Use DefinePlugin.
The DefinePlugin allows you to create global constants which can be
configured at compile time.
new webpack.DefinePlugin(definitions)
Example:
plugins: [
new webpack.DefinePlugin({
PRODUCTION: JSON.stringify(true)
})
//...
]
Usage:
console.log(`Environment is in production: ${PRODUCTION}`);

You can use define window.myvar = {}.
When you want to use it, you can use like window.myvar = 1

DefinePlugin doesn't actually define anything. What it does is replace variables that exist in your bundle code. If the variable doesn't exist in your code, it will do nothing. So it doesn't create global variables.
In order to create a global variable, write it in your code:
window.MyGlobal = MY_GLOBAL;
And use DefinePlugin to replace MY_GLOBAL with some code:
new webpack.DefinePlugin({
'MY_GLOBAL': `'foo'`,
// or
'MY_GLOBAL': `Math.random()`,
}),
Then your output JS will be like this:
window.MyGlobal = 'foo';
// or
window.MyGlobal = Math.random();
But MY_GLOBAL will never actually exist at runtime, because it is never defined. So that's why DefinePlugin has a misleading name.

I solved this issue by setting the global variables as a static properties on the classes to which they are most relevant. In ES5 it looks like this:
var Foo = function(){...};
Foo.globalVar = {};

You may hit this issue, when triing bundle < script > tag js files in some old project.
Do not use webpack for this, it may be even impossible if joining 50+ libraries like jquery and then figuring out all global variables or if they used nested require. I would advice to simply use uglify js instead , which drops all this problems in 2 commands.
npm install uglify-js -g
uglifyjs --compress --mangle --output bundle.js -- js/jquery.js js/silly.js