Webpack-cli: Support setting the config name for multiple configs

[DBosley]

Operating System: Ubuntu 18.04
Node Version: 8.11.1
NPM Version: 6.0.0
webpack Version: 4.12.0
webpack-hot-client Version: 4.0.3

• [x] This is a feature request
• [ ] This is a bug

What is the motivation and/or use-case for the feature?

Webpack supports multiple configurations in a single file by exporting an array.
Info Here
A new feature that was added recently (but currently lacks total documentation) is that you can set a 'name' property in your webpack config and pass --config-name to the cli to choose a specific config to build if you don't want to build all of them.

This feature request is to allow support of this functionality in the webpack-dev-middleware and related plugins.

Implementing this could be done in a couple ways:

• Support passing webpack-cli options into the middleware somehow
• Support choosing a config-name in the middleware options

I think the first solution is going to be the best approach if it's possible. This is because it would allow any webpack-cli arguments to be used with middlewares. If for some reason there's no way to go down this route, the second option would suffice for my use case, but it might be a good idea to look at other options listed here to see if they would merit being included as well

[shellscape]

Thanks for opening an issue :beer:

Support passing webpack-cli options into the middleware somehow

webpack-cli is a mess of ad-hoc options added over time, so this would not be preferable. webpack-command is a vastly superior CLI, but even supporting all of the flags/options available on that would be bananas.

Support choosing a config-name in the middleware options

This would actually be much more preferable, as it's a targeted, specific use option. The important distinction here between a module like this and something like a CLI is that this module is intended to be used as API directly. We should only ever add only the options we need.

Overall I think this is a really reasonable feature request. I haven't looked into how complex the change would be, but it should be doable.

[DBosley]

This issue arose while using webpack-serve and the way I envisioned the end-result of the implementation would be to pass the cli arguments in when running webpack-serve in the cli. Somehow allowing these to pass them through to whatever webpack-cli you're using behind the scenes. At the same time, I assume webpack-serve and webpack-dev-middleware might not be using any sort of webpack-cli under the hood at all, instead opting to use the webpack API, which is the reason I suggested the two approaches.

If either webpack-command or webpack-cli are actually being called in the middleware, passing whatever arguments through sounds fairly trivial. But if you're only using the API, it makes perfect sense to target specific use cases.

[shellscape]

Yeah take a quick peek at package.json and that'll tell you if a CLI is being used under the hood 😉

The webpack-serve CLI use-case is interesting. In that situation, you'd first need support for a configName option in this repo, and then request that webpack-serve support a --config-name flag.

[evenstensberg]

@shellscape This would align well in a separate repo that has a options file that both serve and cli can use. The feature wouldn't be hard to implement. Import the file and object assign on the file

[shellscape]

@ev1stensberg what? no. that would be a horrible architectural decision.

[evenstensberg]

Perhaps, but it's better than directly importing the config and depending on that. A hard copy in Dev server would make it harder to maintain features if/when they are removed, added or modified

[shellscape]

@ev1stensberg I don't think you understand the conversation here. No one is talking about importing configs.

@DBosley I'll see about getting into this next week. It may not look exactly like the suggestions you had, but pretty sure I know how we can make this happen.

[evenstensberg]

I do, config -> yargs config. Makes it possible for us to bridge the libraries better. But seems like you got this under control.

[alexander-akait]

@DBosley can you provide example how you can see this implementation?

[hinell]

Probably a bit late to party.
There are typically always two types of servers: development and production ones.
In both you can specify which config to use by simply importing it and referencing it.

[eragon512]

hey, I'm a new contributor and I'd like to take up this issue, is it available/active?

[alexander-akait]

Yes, PR welcome

[EslamHiko]

@evilebottnawi I have a suggestion we can create 2 options one is configs or configPath its value will be the path to a config file ex:webpack.middleware.js or an array with a group of options with mode value. and we have the second option will be mode which if it's set it'll import the options from the group of options. so what do you think?

[alexander-akait]

@EslamHiko this issue about supporting name as argument for build, webpack configuration can has multiple configuration (example https://github.com/webpack/webpack/tree/master/examples/multi-compiler), you developer provide this option we should compile only configuration with provided name

[webpack-bot]

This issue had no activity for at least half a year.

It's subject to automatic issue closing if there is no activity in the next 15 days.

[alexander-akait]

We need implement the name flag to run one/two/more of multiple compilers, also it can be --name=web --name=server (multiple args)

/cc @webpack/cli-team

[snitin315]

@evilebottnawi multiple compilers simultaneously?

[alexander-akait]

Yes. With --name=web - run compiler with web name. Should be easy, just filter configuration and remove compiler with web name, same for multiple values

[rishabh3112]

@snitin315 a heads up, the name flag will also be underwork #1649, I suggest to start working on this (if needed) after that PR gets merged to avoid duplicate work :)

[snitin315]

makes sense :+1:

[snitin315]

Yes. With --name=web - run compiler with web name. Should be easy, just filter configuration and remove compiler with web name, same for multiple values

@evilebottnawi Now we support --name=web(which runs compiler with web name) for webpack@next, but it can't accept multiple values.
https://github.com/webpack/webpack/blob/a3bef27457d8936f81525beaa633eb1931382dc0/test/__snapshots__/Cli.test.js.snap#L1099

[alexander-akait]

@snitin315 Let's improve it

[snitin315]

We should improve it at the core or here (in CLI)?

[alexander-akait]

CLI, it is out of scope core

[snitin315]

--name=web flag purpose is set options.name = 'web'. To implement the ability to choose between multiple configs we should implement a different flag --config-name for example like done in v3.

[alexander-akait]

Yes, you are right