Create-react-app: Macro reloading

[jamesknelson]

Is this a bug report?

I'm not sure if this is a bug in create-react-app, a bug in my macro, or if this is the intended behavior.

Did you try recovering your dependencies?

This occurs in a fresh build using yarn version 1.9.4. I've tried with react-scripts 2.0.5 and 2.0.0

Environment

Environment Info:

System:
OS: macOS 10.14
CPU: x64 Intel(R) Core(TM) i7-4850HQ CPU @ 2.30GHz
Binaries:
Node: 10.10.0 - /usr/local/bin/node
Yarn: 1.9.4 - /usr/local/bin/yarn
npm: 6.4.1 - /usr/local/bin/npm
Browsers:
Chrome: 70.0.3538.77
Firefox: 62.0.3
Safari: 12.0
npmPackages:
react: ^16.6.0 => 16.6.0
react-dom: ^16.6.0 => 16.6.0
react-scripts: ^2.0.5 => 2.0.5
npmGlobalPackages:
create-react-app: 2.0.4

Steps to Reproduce

To make the changes from a fresh create-react-app install:

1. yarn add mdx.macro (see the package source)
2. Create a markdown document with some content in src/test.mdx

# Hello, world

1. replace App.js with:

import { mdx, importMDX } from 'mdx.macro';
import React, { Component } from 'react';
const App = importMDX.sync('./test.mdx')
export default App;

Expected Behavior

1. I'd expect the content to show up on initial load, instead of needing to refresh the page manually.
2. According to https://github.com/facebook/create-react-app/pull/5078 and https://github.com/kentcdodds/babel-plugin-macros/pull/83, I would have expected the macro to be re-called on each build, but this doesn't appear to happen unless I actually edit the App.js file that calls the macro.

Actual Behavior

1. When the browser loads localhost:3000 after executing yarn start, it shows a blank page. Hit refresh and the content appears.
2. When you edit the content of test.mdx, the page refreshes (as the macro adds an import for the test.mdx file). However, the macro is not called again, so the old content is displayed.

Reproducible Demo

https://github.com/jamesknelson/mdx-cra-demo

Thoughts

I'm pretty out of my depth here, but I don't think the babel cache is the problem. I've tried cleaning the cache manually (rm node_modules/.cache/babel-loader/*) and then editing the markdown file. When I do, the page reloads, but the cache directory stays empty.

I think it's webpack itself that's deciding not to pass the App.js file through any loaders.

The macro follows the pattern mentioned by @kentcdodds where it creates a temporary file and imports that. The generated file then imports the original MDX file so that webpack will notice changes and rebuild (but only in development mode -- don't worry).

Would love to hear any ideas for getting this working, as being able to use MDX files without ejecting would be 👌, but no refresh-on-change is a bit of a deal breaker.

[eckdanny-osi]

Related https://github.com/facebook/create-react-app/issues/5149

[kentcdodds]

If we can figure out how to solve this I will be very happy. Unfortunately I cannot personally spare any time to work on this :-/

[jamesknelson]

@kentcdodds Do you have any hunches on where I'd need to look? I can put a bit of time into this, I'm just stuck on the best approach.

[kentcdodds]

This will be the real solution: https://github.com/babel/babel/issues/8497

If you can help there that would be fantastic

[alamothe]

Hello, is there any workaround?

Let's say I edit a graphql file, how would I force recompile?

[nagman]

Agree with @alamothe. It would be awesome to have hot reload with .graphql files.

[thapakazi]

Guys, any workaround on this for newbies like me ??

[nik-lampe]

As a workaround:
If you save the file where you import the graphl file, it will be reloaded. Just add a line somewhere and have prettier active. Using VS Code Prettier will remove the line anyway but saving the file will trigger the reload and this will also reload the graphql file.

Not nice, because you have to edit two files, but better than restarting the script :)

[peterp]

@kentcdodds The caveats section in babel-plugin-macros docs seems to indicate that the babel cache problem isn't an issue in Create React App:

But, it seems that it might be? Or do you know if that paragraph is still accurate because I'm trying to find some inspiration for fixing this in our own development server.

[kentcdodds]

I think that's still correct because CRA doesn't cache any file that's using a macro. That doesn't mean that webpack will rebuild when you change a file that the macro is using, but it will rebuild if you change anything that's being watched.

Maybe we could make that more clear.

[martuanez]

I think the ability to add file watchers based on file type is the minimum desirable funcionality, right?

[ClementParis016]

I just lost a bunch of time because I wasn't realizing that loader('xxx.graphql') wasn't rebuilding when saving a .graphql file so I started to become crazy because code looked fine but my queries weren't matching 😅

Reading these comments, I don't really understand if this is fixable in some way? Otherwise should we at least update the "Loading .graphql Files" docs to point out the fact that using loader() doesn't rebuild as opposed to using gql?

[DenysVuika]

2 years later, and the problem is still there :( I have to stop the CRA and run it again each time I change a line in the .mdx file, and this process is extremely annoying. Is there any way to make it more developer-friendly? any workarounds?

[patricknick]

2 years later, and the problem is still there :( I have to stop the CRA and run it again each time I change a line in the .mdx file, and this process is extremely annoying. Is there any way to make it more developer-friendly? any workarounds?

did you try this? https://github.com/facebook/create-react-app/issues/5580#issuecomment-566420375 For me it's working most of the time and still better than restarting.

[DenysVuika]

@patricknick I am not using graphql, it's not working with regular .mdx files.

[DennisMamedov]

What is the current non-graphql workaround?

[sarfata]

What is the current non-graphql workaround?

See https://github.com/facebook/create-react-app/issues/5580#issuecomment-566420375 - Reload the .ts[x] file that includes the .mdx (or anything).

[adueck]

@DenysVuika you can use mdx-loader and I find it works great for me. Without ejecting and with very little setup you can use mdx files and have live reloading. 😄

Instructions here.

A sample repo here create-react-app-with-mdx.

[Larkenx]

Once again, create-react-app really needs to get on par with Vue.js's configurability of webpack with exposed options and chaining for a myriad of use cases and issues - one of these being reloading on graphql file watcher changes.