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Better "module not found" message #401
Description
This is what I see when I forget to install some npm dependencies:
This is overwhelming and unnecessary.
We should have simple messages, like:
These dependencies were not found in node_modules:
* redux
* react-redux
Did you forget to run npm install --save for them?
I’m not sure what to do with local file missing errors (i.e. when you import a non-existing file in src). We should probably group them separately but also in a less intimidating way.
I don’t personally plan to work on this so any help is welcome!
Activity
gaearon commentedon Aug 8, 2016
If you plan to work on this please leave a comment. We don’t want many people to work on the same thing at the same time.
A good place to start looking at would be
scripts/start.js. We already handle Webpack errors in an unorthodox way so we may want to keep refining that.cc @geowarin who also was looking into improvements to webpack output in geowarin/tarec#16.
rogeliog commentedon Aug 8, 2016
@gaearon I would love to work on this one 😄
geowarin commentedon Aug 8, 2016
Hi @gaearon.
If you change this line to
var json = stats.toJson({}, true);, you'll get a much shorter error output.It is what webpack normally displays on errors (ie, when you don't parse the errors yourself) and it doesn't include the
detailsfield.See here.
This is a short term measure before somebody actually dives into webpack internals to do exactly what you suggested.
(I'm working on geowarin/tarec#16 and as promised I will contribute back when it's ready but if somebody wants to tackle it in the meantine, it would be interesting)
Make missing module output slimmer
jnsdls commentedon Aug 8, 2016
this would be a great change not just for this specific project but in general (at least as an option)
Identify and group ModuleNotFound errors
rogeliog commentedon Aug 9, 2016
Seems that @geowarin already has a PR 👍, he also has more domain knowledge than me!
geowarin commentedon Aug 10, 2016
I created the friendly-errors-webpack-plugin.
It still needs more work (see the TODO in the README) but I'd love to see your feedback/ PR. 😄
ETA: Friday night
rogeliog commentedon Aug 11, 2016
@geowarin Awesome, given that you created friendly-errors-webpack-plugin I thought that it would make more sense me to PR that repo instead of this one. geowarin/friendly-errors-webpack-plugin#1
rogeliog commentedon Aug 18, 2016
@geowarin is there an update on this? I'm more than happy to pick it up or help out with anything :)
Make missing module output slimmer
fson commentedon Aug 30, 2016
What if instead of
missing packages would bring out a prompt to install them for you?
geowarin commentedon Aug 31, 2016
Update: there is a PR implementing this.
@fson It would be great to provide autofixes! The only part I'm not sure about is how to allow simple interactions with the console since it is cleared every now and then.
gaearon commentedon Aug 31, 2016
I’m a bit worried about autofixes because it’s easier to miss typos and install something you didn’t want. I’d like installation act to be explicit.
Make missing module output slimmer
mareksuscak commentedon Sep 11, 2016
@gaearon As per Heroku's Node.js best practices we could mitigate the issue by providing
.npmrcin the project root folder for newly created projects with essential defaults. We've been using that technique for quite a while now and it's certainly lowered the number of those "forgotten to--savethe dependency" issues. If interested I could work on that part.This is what we use:
fson commentedon Sep 11, 2016
@mareksuscak Thanks for the tip, didn't know about this setting before. However, I think it could increase the confusion in some cases, because we would basically be creating a hidden file that makes npm behave differently from the default. People might not notice it or understand what it does, only npm would seem to behave differently from time to time. That's why I think a simple message showing how to use
npm install --save, as suggested originally, would be a better option.This project also aims to avoid adding configuration and flags as much as possible, so generating a
.npmrcfile would not fit well in this philosophy.Make missing module output slimmer
gaearon commentedon Mar 7, 2017
I think this was fixed.
Merge pull request react#401 from JoshuaScript/JoshuaScript-patch-1