Webpacker: Why is every file that matches the config extension used as an entry?

[scottcorgan]

While investigated slow build times in our app, I found that every single file that matches the extensions setting in webpacker.yml is set to be an entry file. I might be wrong here, but that may not be necessary.

In my testing, I've found only setting the files that use javascript_pack_tag or stylesheet_pack_tag are needed to properly build and compile all the types of static assets.

I'm super curious about this and want to know if anyone has any insight.

Thanks! 👍

[Odaeus]

I'm still learning Webpack and noticed this too. The webpacker README seems to indicate that only the files in the root of the packs dir will be entry points. However, I think that all source files are being built and emitted as separate possible entry points.

I modified the extensionGlob in shared.js to remove the recursive search ("**/*{$... -> "*{$...) and now my entry points are just the top level files.

Though it didn't seem to make much difference to compilation time!

[gauravtiwari]

@scottcorgan Only the files that are put under packs folder are matched. Please make sure to remove other source file out of the packs folder to app/javascript and only keep entry files inside packs folder.

app/javascript: 
  - calender.js
  - chat.js
  - src/components/chat.js
  - # etc....
packs: 
  - main.js # imports child components and bootstrap

[gauravtiwari]

@Odaeus Yes that doesn't add anything however please make sure to not have all the JS files inside packs folder - only entry files needs to be here.

[Odaeus]

Thanks @gauravtiwari, I guess I wasn't paying close enough attention to the README, oops!

[scottcorgan]

Is there something in the README you could link to about this?

[gauravtiwari]

@scottcorgan I will make a PR and add a section for this 👍

[adamsanderson]

Hey thanks, that tripped me up too!

[gauravtiwari]

Addressed in #710