node-native-loader

A webpack loader for node native modules (.node/C++ binaries).

What it does

This loader moves all relevant files (generally, .node files) to the output path, then uses relative paths to load them, so that they can be loaded in a consistent location across different builds of an app (development vs packaged, etc.).

It is similar to node-relative-loader, but has a number of problematic options removed, and works consistently on Windows (whereas the aforementioned module often generates non-working require statements).

Differences with tec27/note-native-loader

Webpack 4

This is a webpack 4 loader, so you can't define a nodeNativeLoader key in the webpack config anymore. Instead, you can directly pass an options object in the loader definition:

const config = {
  // ...
  module: {
    loaders: {
      // ...
      {
        test: /\.node$/,
        loader: 'node-native',
        options:{
          outputPath: path.join(__dirname, './app'),
          nativePath: './natives',
        }
      },
    }
  }
}

Loaders can't access global options anymore, but the loader needs to know the Webpack outputPath. Therefore the outputPath must be specified explicitly.

Use nativePath to put the native files in a specific folder.

`from` is renamed `outputPath` and is mandatory

This is more consistent with Webpack naming. outputPath should match the output.path option.

New option `nativePath`

The nativePath option is a path relative to the webpack output path. It allow to put the .node files in a specific, separate folder.

**NOTE: outputPath is relative to your webpack config, in order to be consistent with the tec27/note-native-loader, whereas nativePath is relative to the **output.path** option.

const config = {
  // ...
  output:{
    path: path.join(__dirname, 'app'),
  },
  module: {
    loaders: {
      // ...
      {
        test: /\.node$/,
        loader: 'node-native',
        options:{
          // .node files will be put in ./app/natives folder
          outputPath: path: path.join(__dirname, 'app'),
          nativePath: './natives',
        }
      },
    }
  }
}

Usage

// In your webpack config
// For an application that outputs files to ./app/dist, and starts from ./app/index:
const config = {
  // ...
  module: {
    loaders: {
      // ...
      {
        test: /\.node$/,
        // `from` is where paths will be made relative to
        loader: 'node-native?from=app',
      },
    }
  }
}

A note on webpack-dev-server

If you're using webpack-dev-server (or webpack-dev-middleware), you probably also want to add write-file-webpack-plugin to your configuration for all .node files, so that they still get written to the filesystem and can be required consistently.

License

MIT

lbke/node-native-loader