I'm looking to configure @types for a third-party React JavaScript module in order to use it with TypeScript and bundle it with webpack. How can I accomplish this?

Question

I'm looking to configure @types for a third-party React JavaScript module in order to use it with TypeScript and bundle it with webpack. How can I accomplish this?

Imagine you have a third-party npm package called @foo that is all Javascript and has a module named bar. Within your TypeScript .tsx file, you want to use the React component @foo/bar/X. However, when you attempt to import X from '@foo/bar/X', you encounter a "module not found" error. How can you solve this issue by employing @types TypeScript and ensuring webpack runs smoothly without any errors?

javascript typescript npm webpack

Answer 1

Answer №1

My journey began with a guide on incorporating React and Webpack with TypeScript, which can be found here: https://www.typescriptlang.org/docs/handbook/react-&-webpack.html. Unfortunately, this guide did not address the issue of missing @types for the specific React component I wanted to utilize. Therefore, my initial task was to include these @types.

An interesting aspect came into play with the scoped module @foo/bar; it divided its subcomponents into individual modules like @foo/bar/X, @foo/bar/Y, and @foo/bar/Z, rendering @foo/bar itself non-functional. This unique characteristic complicated the resolution process when integrating this module into TypeScript.

I stumbled upon a helpful blog post detailing how to import plain JavaScript into TypeScript, but it fell short in some areas. Particularly, the method suggested adding "index.d.ts" to a src/@typings directory had a couple of drawbacks:

It only worked for running the TypeScript compiler (tsc) locally, satisfying tsc's compilation requirements but failing webpack's module resolution.
The approach did not offer insights into handling scoped modules with distinct folder naming conventions under @types.

Regardless of the technique employed, one crucial element was ensuring the presence of an import statement in my TypeScript file:

import X from '@foo/bar/X';

ReactDOM.render(
    <X/>,
    document.getElementById("example")
);

At some point, declaring the following in a ".d.ts" declarations file such as index.d.ts became imperative:

declare module '@foo/bar';
declare module '@foo/bar/X';

Despite these efforts, executing 'webpack' continued to produce an error stating "Module not found: Error: Can't resolve '@foo/bar/X'."

To gain more clarity, I opted to run the TypeScript compiler (tsc) with the --traceresolution flag to track the potential locations where tsc would attempt to locate the module.

tsc --traceresolution

This analysis revealed an unexpected search location under node_modules/@types, leading me to discover that tsc and by extension webpack adhered to comparable rules. Notably, tsc looked for index.d.ts file under node_modules/@types/foo__bar, highlighting the necessity for utilizing a single folder named foo__bar with DOUBLE UNDERSCORE for scope packages.

Armed with this knowledge, I created @types/foo__bar, mimicking the structure of the original @foo/bar module while cleaning unnecessary elements. Yet, challenges persisted as webpack still reported "

Module not found: Can't resolve '@foo/bar'

." Further investigation utilizing 'webpack --verbose' shed light on webpack's interest in node_modules/@foo/bar/index.js—an empty enclosing module for submodules like @foo/bar/X. Addressing this discrepancy by adding an empty index.js to node_modules/@foo/bar resolved the issue, allowing my simple example, with component X, to render successfully in the browser upon loading the HTML page.

Answer 2

My journey began with a guide on incorporating React and Webpack with TypeScript, which can be found here: https://www.typescriptlang.org/docs/handbook/react-&-webpack.html. Unfortunately, this guide did not address the issue of missing @types for the specific React component I wanted to utilize. Therefore, my initial task was to include these @types.

An interesting aspect came into play with the scoped module @foo/bar; it divided its subcomponents into individual modules like @foo/bar/X, @foo/bar/Y, and @foo/bar/Z, rendering @foo/bar itself non-functional. This unique characteristic complicated the resolution process when integrating this module into TypeScript.

I stumbled upon a helpful blog post detailing how to import plain JavaScript into TypeScript, but it fell short in some areas. Particularly, the method suggested adding "index.d.ts" to a src/@typings directory had a couple of drawbacks:

It only worked for running the TypeScript compiler (tsc) locally, satisfying tsc's compilation requirements but failing webpack's module resolution.
The approach did not offer insights into handling scoped modules with distinct folder naming conventions under @types.

Regardless of the technique employed, one crucial element was ensuring the presence of an import statement in my TypeScript file:

import X from '@foo/bar/X';

ReactDOM.render(
    <X/>,
    document.getElementById("example")
);

At some point, declaring the following in a ".d.ts" declarations file such as index.d.ts became imperative:

declare module '@foo/bar';
declare module '@foo/bar/X';

Despite these efforts, executing 'webpack' continued to produce an error stating "Module not found: Error: Can't resolve '@foo/bar/X'."

To gain more clarity, I opted to run the TypeScript compiler (tsc) with the --traceresolution flag to track the potential locations where tsc would attempt to locate the module.

tsc --traceresolution

This analysis revealed an unexpected search location under node_modules/@types, leading me to discover that tsc and by extension webpack adhered to comparable rules. Notably, tsc looked for index.d.ts file under node_modules/@types/foo__bar, highlighting the necessity for utilizing a single folder named foo__bar with DOUBLE UNDERSCORE for scope packages.

Armed with this knowledge, I created @types/foo__bar, mimicking the structure of the original @foo/bar module while cleaning unnecessary elements. Yet, challenges persisted as webpack still reported "

Module not found: Can't resolve '@foo/bar'

." Further investigation utilizing 'webpack --verbose' shed light on webpack's interest in node_modules/@foo/bar/index.js—an empty enclosing module for submodules like @foo/bar/X. Addressing this discrepancy by adding an empty index.js to node_modules/@foo/bar resolved the issue, allowing my simple example, with component X, to render successfully in the browser upon loading the HTML page.

I'm looking to configure @types for a third-party React JavaScript module in order to use it with TypeScript and bundle it with webpack. How can I accomplish this?

Answer №1

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