globals loader for webpack

Note: There are currently two issues with this loader that I cannot find a solution to. Those two issues make the loader unusable in most situations. If you are interested in this project and have the time to invest on looking for a solution or if you know the solution to the problem, please let me know. Thank you!

Motivation

I decided to create this loader after realising how difficult it was to simply require dependencies that just define global variables, like jQuery and AngularJS. Those dependencies are not modules and on some cases I don't think it makes any sense to force them to behave as so. Besides that, webpack also didn't provide a way to only include those dependencies in a file if they were explicitly required.

If you want to understand what I was trying to accomplish before I decided to develop this loader I suggest you read my question on stackoverflow.

Usage

To require a file use the folllowing format:

require("globals!file");
// => appends the contents of <file> to vendor.js file in the output folder specified in the webpack config file
// => returns nothing because <file> doesn't contain a module, it is supposed to be loaded as a global instead 

The require above just makes sure the contents of are included in the output file. To make the globals available you need to include the vendor.js file on your HTML page:

<script src="https://github.com/bensampaio/webpack-globals-loader/raw/master/path/to/output/folder/vendor.js"></script>

If you want the generated file to have a different name use the 'o' query property to specify the file name without extension, as follows:

require("globals?o=lib!file");
// => appends the contents of <file> to lib.js file in the output folder specified in the webpack config file

require("globals?o=relative/path/to/folder/lib!file");
// => appends the contents of <file> to relative/path/to/folder/lib.js file in the output folder specified in the webpack config file

Examples

For all examples on this section let's assume we have the following webpack.config.js file:

module.exports = {
    context: __dirname + '/src',
    entry: {
        app: './main.js'
    },
    output: {
        path: __dirname + '/dist',
        filename: '[name].js'
    },
    resolve: {
        alias: {
            'jquery': __dirname + '/vendor/jquery.js',
            'jquery.plugin1': __dirname + '/vendor/jquery.plugin1.js',
            'jquery.plugin2': __dirname + '/vendor/jquery.plugin2.js',

            'module1': __dirname + '/src/module1.js'

        }
    },
}

If our main.js file contains the following:

require("globals!jquery");
require("globals!jquery.plugin1");

When we run webpack a file with name vendor.js will be created in __dirname + '/dist' containing the code from jquery and jquery.plugin1 files. When vendor.js is included on a page, jquery will be available as a global to all your modules and it will be extended with plugin1.

Now let's change our main.js file to:

require("globals!jquery");

var obj = require("module1");

And let's add the following to module1.js:

require("globals!jquery");
require("globals!jquery.plugin1");

module.exports = {};

When we run webpack vendor.js will look the same as before. Although jquery is included twice its code will only be present once in the generated file.

Now let's change our 'module1.js' to the following:

require("globals?o=vendor2!jquery");
require("globals!jquery.plugin1");
require("globals?o=vendor2!jquery.plugin2");

module.exports = {};

Once again when we run webpack vendor.js will remain the same, but this time a vendor2.js will also be generated containing the code from jquery and jquery.plugin2. Notice that now both vendor.js and vendor2.js contain jquery. This behaviour may be changed later on if it doesn't prove useful.

Support

If you find any problems with this loader just open a new issue and I'll try to look into it as soon as possible.