grunt-es6-module-transpiler

A Grunt task for processing ES6 module import/export syntax into one of AMD, CommonJS or globals using the es6-module-transpiler. Also allows you to temporarily enable ES6 modules for other tasks.

Getting Started

This plugin requires Grunt ~0.4.1

If you haven't used Grunt before, be sure to check out the Getting Started guide, as it explains how to create a Gruntfile as well as install and use Grunt plugins. Once you're familiar with that process, you may install this plugin with this command:

npm install grunt-es6-module-transpiler --save-dev

To use add the transpile task to your Grunt configuration.

Using with RequireJS/CommonJS:

grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-es6-module-transpiler');

grunt.initConfig({
  transpile: {
    main: {
      type: "cjs", // or "amd"
      files: [{
        expand: true,
        cwd: 'lib/',
        src: ['**/*.js'],
        dest: 'tmp/'
      }]
    }
  }
});

Using with Globals

grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-es6-module-transpiler');

grunt.initConfig({
  transpile: {
    main: {
      type: "globals",
      imports: { bar: "Bar" },
      files: {
        'tmp/globals.js': ['test/fixtures/input.js'],
        'tmp/globals-bar.js': ['test/fixtures/bar.js']
      }
    }
  }
});

Transpiling your files

Manually run the task with grunt transpile or include it as part of your build task:

grunt.registerTask('build', ['clean', 'transpile', '...']);

Using modules in other node scripts

Sometimes during the course of building an app, your grunt tasks will call out to other node scripts that interpret your files, but don't transpile them first. For example, running tests via Mocha: you cannot use ES6 modules within your Mocha tests unless you specifically enable it before your tests run. You can now do that with a grunt task. For example:

grunt.registerTask('test', ['transpile:enable', 'simplemocha']);

This will run your tests through the transpiler, automatically converting imports/exports to CommonJS. You could also chain tasks on the command line like:

grunt transpile:enable loadData

Resources

• Using Grunt & the ES6 Module Transpiler by Thomas Boyt

Caveat

The module transpiler forces strict mode; there is no option to turn this off. If, like me, you typically use Mocha with Chai, this can cause a problem because Chai attempts to access arguments.callee, which violates strict mode. I switched to using expect.js and it works great.

Contributing

In lieu of a formal styleguide, take care to maintain the existing coding style. Add unit tests for any new or changed functionality. Lint and test your code using Grunt.

Release History

07/09/2013 v0.4.1 - Improved windows support when using amd 07/09/2013 v0.4.0 - Update to v0.2.0 of es6-module-transpiler for new syntax support 05/28/2013 v0.3.0 - Add callback for dynamically specifying AMD modulename 05/02/2013 v0.2.0 - Fixes for globals, CoffeeScript, transpile:enable task for node scripts 04/17/2013 v0.1.0 - Initial release, supports basic transpile task