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.

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' }
    ]
  }
}

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.

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. It also 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