16

I'm going through this tutorial on discord.js. When I ran the code as written, I got errors like SyntaxError: Cannot use import statement outside a module.

So, I added "type": "module" to package.json

I managed to get the early examples to run. Now, i'm working on a section of code:

import dotenv  from "dotenv";
dotenv.config();
const token = process.env.DTOKEN;

// const fs = require('node:fs');
import fs from 'node:fs';
// const path = require('node:path');
import path from 'node:path';


// Require the necessary discord.js classes
import { Client, Collection, Intents } from "discord.js";
// const { token } = require('./config.json');

// Create a new client instance
const client = new Client({ intents: [Intents.FLAGS.GUILDS] });

client.commands = new Collection();
const commandsPath = path.join(__dirname, 'commands');
const commandFiles = fs.readdirSync(commandsPath).filter(file => file.endsWith('.js'));


for (const file of commandFiles) {
    const filePath = path.join(commandsPath, file);
    const command = require(filePath);
    // Set a new item in the Collection
    // With the key as the command name and the value as the exported module
    client.commands.set(command.data.name, command);
}

// When the client is ready, run this code (only once)
client.once('ready', () => {
    console.log('Ready!');
});


client.on('interactionCreate', async interaction => {
    if (!interaction.isCommand()) return;

    const { commandName } = interaction;

    const command = client.commands.get(interaction.commandName);

    if (!command) return;

    try {
        await command.execute(interaction);
    } catch (error) {
        console.error(error);
        await interaction.reply({ content: 'There was an error while executing this command!', ephemeral: true });
    }
});

// Login to Discord with your client's token
client.login(token);

I'm getting: ReferenceError: __dirname is not defined in ES module scope

I don't see a lot to go on in SO. Questions like this one just put me back to square one.

What am I missing?

DBWeinstein
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3 Answers3

31

This article helps solve the issue: https://bobbyhadz.com/blog/javascript-dirname-is-not-defined-in-es-module-scope

Here's the code from the article:

import path from 'path';
import {fileURLToPath} from 'url';

const __filename = fileURLToPath(import.meta.url);

// ️ "/home/john/Desktop/javascript"
const __dirname = path.dirname(__filename);
console.log('directory-name ️', __dirname);

// ️ "/home/borislav/Desktop/javascript/dist/index.html"
console.log(path.join(__dirname, '/dist', 'index.html'));
DBWeinstein
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3

__filename and __dirname are only available in CommonJS modules according to Nodejs documentation.

Use fileURLToPath(import.meta.url) get file path of the current file/module. If you need containing directory path use path.dirname()

Jurijs Kovzels
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1

There is a simpler solution appeared not long ago. Now you can install common-es npm package and use it like this:

import { getGlobals } from 'common-es'
const { __dirname, __filename } = getGlobals(import.meta.url)
// now you can use __dirname or file name normally as you would do in commonjs
// ...
Kades
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