Webpack-encore: How to add alias and externals in encore

[tristanbes]

Hello,

Since webpack is obscure to me, I'm giving encore a chance but i'm strugling with how to add an alias and externals entries

    resolve: {
      extensions: ['.js', '.json', '.vue'],
      alias: {
        Translator: 'node_modules/bazinga-translator/js',
      },
    },
    externals: {
      vue: 'Vue',
      vuex: 'Vuex',
      google: 'google',
      leaflet: 'L',
      markerclustererplus: 'MarkerClusterer',
      routing: 'Routing',
      app: 'app',
      translator: 'Translator',
    },

I tried ctrl+f in encore API but didn't found it :(

[tristanbes]

I tried

.autoProvideVariables({
  'window.Routing': 'routing',
})

But babel is creaming at me because it doesn't find the depandancies
import Routing from 'routing'; (which is the js exposed from https://github.com/FriendsOfSymfony/FOSJsRoutingBundle)

My previous settings with raw webpack externals settings was working :(

[tristanbes]

Ok, so it seems I can play with webpack configuration itself:

var config = Encore.getWebpackConfig();
config.watchOptions = { poll: 400, ignored: /node_modules/ };
config.externals = {
  vue: 'Vue',
  vuex: 'Vuex',
  google: 'google',
  leaflet: 'L',
  markerclustererplus: 'MarkerClusterer',
  routing: 'Routing',
  app: 'app',
  translator: 'Translator',
};

config.resolve.alias = {
  ...config.resolve.alias,
  Translator: 'node_modules/bazinga-translator/js',
};
// export the final configuration
module.exports = config;

Or maybe I missed something in the API ?

[Lyrkan]

Hi @tristanbes,

Currently there is no "helper method" to directly manipulate externals and aliases.

We add some aliases for Vue.js and Preact but that's all:

https://github.com/symfony/webpack-encore/blob/bcfbbfd6ab684197b2315f850dcb2db56172ea34/lib/config-generator.js#L78-L90

So if you really need them I guess you're doing it the right way :)

Note that you can also use FOSJsRoutingBundle without externals/aliases:

• https://github.com/symfony/webpack-encore/issues/5#issuecomment-308101272
• https://github.com/symfony/webpack-encore/issues/97#issuecomment-315757285

[weaverryan]

Adding aliases and externals seems common enough that I think it makes sense to add mutators to the Encore API. Wdyt @Lyrkan?

[Lyrkan]

Yep, we should probably implement addAliases() and addExternals() :+1:

[ddproxy]

I'm struggling with adding aliases right now, I'd expect

config.resolve.alias = {
    'App': path.resolve('./app/Resources/src/App')
};

To resolve my import * from 'App/Module'; into ./app/Resources/src/App/Module.js (converting over from requirejs) but it doesn't seem to be picking it up, anywhere.

[Lyrkan]

Hi @ddproxy,

First thing to check: are you exporting the right config?

// Bad
const config = Encore.getWebpackConfig();
config.resolve.alias = { /* ... */ };
module.exports = Encore.getWebpackConfig();

// Good
const config = Encore.getWebpackConfig();
config.resolve.alias = { /* ... */ };
module.exports = config;

Then: is path.resolve() returning the right path? Try adding a console.log(...) in your webpack.config.js file to display it when running encore.

[ddproxy]

Adding a bit more information just in case, but yes I'm exporting the correct configuration object. At this point I'm mucking around the webpack config docs, tweaking different advanced settings (such as symlink: true)...

config.resolve.alias = {
    ...config.resolve.alias,
    'App': path.resolve('./app/Resources/src/App')
};

if (Encore.isProduction()) {
    config.plugins = config.plugins.filter(
        plugin => !(plugin instanceof webpack.optimize.UglifyJsPlugin)
    );

    config.plugins.push(new UglifyJsPlugin());
}

module.exports = config;

[ddproxy]

More information!

My App structure doesn't have index.js modules for each directory.

IE: App/Backbone/Backbone doesn't have
App/Backbone/index.js
App/Backbone/Backbone/index.js
files.

Using

config.resolve.alias['App'] = path.resolve(__dirname, './app/Resources/src/App');

according to the webpack docs (https://webpack.js.org/configuration/resolve/#resolve-alias) is supposed to map the following (shortened list)...

Alias | import from 'App/Backbone/Backbone' | import from 'App/Backbone/Backbone.js'
-----|----------------------------------------|---------------------------------------------
{ App: "/absolute/App" } | /absolute/App/Backbone/Backbone/index.js | /absolute/App/Backbone/Backbone.js

But, after some testing, (by adding an index.js) it doesn't work that way right off the back. If I were to use the App/Backbone/Backbone.js import - my errors go away... Not the fix I was looking for (plenty of imports to add 'js' to) but I can keep moving forward with this.

Edit: adding .js also didn't work... Just threw an error a bit further down.

[ddproxy]

Well, uh... This is embarrassing... It'd be nice if I used the right path. My issue is resolved now.

[MartinLyne]

Is there a way to install this with flex or composer yet, please?

[Lyrkan]

Hi @MartinLyne,

Encore.addAliases and Encore.addExternals were added in Encore 0.18.0, and the current flex pack automatically installs Encore 0.20.1.

If you are talking about an existing Flex install, then you'll have to update it manually using yarn or npm.

[MartinLyne]

If I try to manually use that version number with yarn add I get [1/5] Resolving packages... error Received malformed response from registry for undefined. The registry may be down.

If I do yarn upgrade nothing updates. Sorry, thanks for any help.

Edit: sorry it seems I was using incorrect yarn reference (using the composer name without "pack" at the end.

[Lyrkan]

Hm, I just tried it an it works fine:

$ yarn add --dev @symfony/webpack-encore@^0.20.1
(...)
success Saved 534 new dependencies.
info Direct dependencies
└─ @symfony/[email protected]
info All dependencies
├─ @symfony/[email protected]
├─ @types/[email protected]
(...)
├─ [email protected]
├─ [email protected]
└─ [email protected]
Done in 92.67s.

Are you behind a proxy or something else that could block yarn?
Is your yarn configured to use a private registry (other than npm)?

[MartinLyne]

Wait.. you didn't have to use -pack suffix?

I also updated nodejs, if that is relevant (i was at the bottom of the barrel)

So I just removed the symfony/webpack-encore-pack that I added (from a stack overflow answer) and encore + externals still works. So I guess it was nodejs version (I only installed it the other day, strange). Wish I'd used verbose earlier to see what was generating that undefined.

[stof]

symfony/webpack-encore-pack is just a way for the Flex recipe to initialize the package.json file to reference encore. But webpack-encore is not a PHP package at all, but a node.js one. So installing it is done using the node.js tooling (npm or yarn).

[Tech-Nomad]

In my case "./" before the path caused the issue.
After removing it from the path string, Webpack finally resolves the alias!! 🎉

let config = Encore.getWebpackConfig();
config.resolve.alias["~"] = path.resolve(__dirname, 'assets/js');
module.exports = config;

And then just like this:

import Header from '~/components/Header.vue'

More Info here:
https://webpack.js.org/configuration/resolve/
https://symfony.com/doc/current/frontend/encore/advanced-config.html

[dadaxr]

Could be nice to have a doc entry about addAliases and addExternals (#217 ) in the https://symfony.com/doc/current/frontend/encore/advanced-config.html .

The actual comment about the feature is quite hidden !