Node.js require webpacked modules

Question

I'm trying to get rid of the thousand files you get once you npm install various modules having their own dependencies.

Thus I was thinking of compiling only the libraries using webpack into one javascript file (and other required resources), then loading it to the Node.js project this way :

Entry point, that will be compiled to bundle by webpack.

module.exports = {
    lodash : require('lodash'),
    colors : require('colors'),
    test : require('test'),
    abc : require('abc')
} ;

Main

var { lodash, colors, test, abc } = require('./lib/bundle') ;

The problem I got is that some modules require system (or uncompilable) modules, such as fs, and webpack tries to bundle them to. You just have to specify in the webpack.config.js file :

node: {
    fs : "empty",
    electron : "empty"
}

However, once packed into bundle, it seems that every require('fs') is replaced by Object.freeze({}) because of this setting, and then the modules fail using fs.

Would anyone have a solution for using packed modules in a Node.js project ?

P.S.: I tried using yarn with yarn autoclean --force to remove all unnecessary files, but it only removed 5% to 10% of the total.

Carloluis · Accepted Answer · 2018-04-14T17:48:34.427

The problem using the current node config object and set fs: 'empty' is that it will provide an empty object for those modules. More info about Webpack Node here.

You can set the Webpack target property to 'node'

Compile for usage in a Node.js-like environment (uses Node.js require to load chunks and not touch any built in modules like fs or path)

module.exports = {
  target: 'node'
};

Node.js require webpacked modules

1 Answers1