precompile does not seem to work

[benoitguigal]

I am using browserify-middleware in production with NODE_ENV='production'. According to the documentation, precompileshould be set to true. However, my first request after server start up takes a lot of time (~30s to serve /bundles/shared.js). Here is my code :

var browserify = require('browserify-middleware');
var reactify = require('reactify');
browserify.settings('transform', ['reactify']);

var shared = ['react', 'superagent'];
router.get('/bundles/shared.js', browserify(shared));

does it have something to do with requiring external libraries ?

[filod]

+1 for this

[JedWatson]

React takes a lot of time to compile (although I'm seeing avg. 6 seconds on a newish macbook air, not 30)

browserify-middleware will wait until the bundle is built before serving it, whether its built on demand or precompiled (i.e. if you precompile but then immediately request the bundle, you'll experience the same wait)

Are you sure this isn't working as expected? To verify:

• Start your app then immediately request /bundles/shared.js. However long it takes (30s) is your baseline
• Restart your app then wait 60s (or double your baseline), then request /bundles/shared.js. If it takes another 30s, this is a problem. If it is served immediately, precompile is working as expected.

[arnemart]

I am experiencing the same issue – the bundle is definitely not being precompiled, even when setting { cache: true, precompile: true } explicitly.

app.get('/bundle.js', browserify('./browser.js', { cache: true, precompile: true }));

As far as I can scry from reading the source, caching the output happens in the send.js file, but the precompile option calls the compile module which does not touch this cache. I may be entirely missing how this works though :-)

If you point me in the right direction I'd be happy to provide a PR if I find a fix.

[ralucas]

+1 as I've noticed this issue on Heroku which has 30s request timeout. Is there a workaround?

[ForbesLindesay]

This should now be fixed in latest, in fact precompile is completely un-necessary now because we pre-compile everything (except folders).