Webpack Source Loader

Webpack loader that exports the source directly

Note: This project is in early development, and versioning is a little different. Read this for more details.

Why should you care?

If you need to load up a file's source directly and have it available within your javascript, this loader is what you're after. For example, you could load up a svg file, parse out a path you want, and manipulate that with your javascript somehow. Or you could load up a json or text file. Or some other type of file that you came up with yourself. Whatever it is, as long as it's contents would be ok after being run through JSON.stringify (read: text files, not images or binary files), it will work just great with the source loader. And if it is a binary file, it will work great as well, but you won't be able to require it in your client-side js, just manipulate it through a plugin.

Installation

npm install source-loader -S

Usage

Just load it up in your webpack config like this:

module.exports = {
  module: {
    loaders: [
      { test: /\.foo$/, loader: 'source-loader' }
    ]
  }
}

Then you can require it up in your main entry:

const fooFile = require('testing.foo')
console.log(fooFile) // wow it's the contents!

As an added bonus, this loader makes the buffered raw source available on the loaderContext object so that plugins can manipulate it in any way necessary.

Let's break down how this could be done. Inside any plugin hook, you have a compilation object. You can get the loaderContext for any of the modules that webpack is processing through compilation.modules -- just find the one(s) you want by name. Now you have a large object which is an instance of the DependenciesBlock class, with a bunch of great information on it. You can find the raw buffered source under the _src property if the file was loaded with the source-loader.

Additionally, if you have a specific source that is valid javascript and you'd like this loader not to output it as a string that would need to be eval'd in order to use the javascript, there's a hack for that. Within a plugin or another loader, if you add _jsSource as a truthy property to the module, it will skip the extra stringification and output the source raw. Note that you will get an error if it's not valid javascript, so make sure you are only setting the _jsSource property if you are positive that what is coming out of your loader chain is going to be js. To set from a loader, this._module._jsSource = true will do it, and from a plugin, you can do the same as is described above with the _src property.

Wondering what sets this loader apart from raw-loader? This is it. Both loaders expose the file's contents to be required by webpack, but this loader also exposes the raw source for plugin processing, and allows raw js to be passed through conditionally. It also does not try to stringify binary files (which can cause bugs), has tests, and is actively maintained, as a bonus.

License & Contributing

• Details on the license can be found here
• Details on running tests and contributing can be found here