Can't defined exposed name with require option

[guillaume86]

Using the programmatic API, I try to bundle a file and expose it with a simple name:

bundle.expose(path, { expose: 'simpleName' }')

The resulting file keeps the path as the module identifier.
I digged in the source code and the problematic part seems to be:
https://github.com/substack/node-browserify/blob/master/index.js#L119-L126

I'm on windows and my path is C:\Folder\file.ext and the regex test evaluates to false (path don't start by . or /) so the id is set to the path.
Then the exposed name is not assigned since the id is already defined.

I don't really get what is the purpose of lines 119-121 but I guess it needs to be changed to support windows. If someone can explain it to me I can try to submit a pull request with windows support.

Edit:
It could also be a bug (I don't see why the expose parameter shouldn't be used in any case),
in that case changing the line 121 with : xtend(opts, { id: (expose || file), file: file }) should fix the problem.

[TimBeyer]

I'm experiencing a similar problem:

b.require('our-framework/lib/client-polyfills/continuation-local-storage', {
    expose: 'continuation-local-storage'
});

and

b.require('lodash', {
    expose: 'underscore'
});

fail to work correctly on 5.11.0.

I've spent some hours looking into the issue but I can't quite understand what is actually going on in browserify.

I noticed that the compiled javascript now contains
"lodash":undefined in the module lookup definitions, unlike the rest of the modules which look like "querystring":31.

Really not sure how to fix this problem.

[TimBeyer]

Possibly related to #839 and #850

[gobwas]

+1

[litek]

A temporary workaround is to use a path instead of a module reference.

E.g. this doesn't work

b.require('react/addons', {expose: 'react'});

This however does

b.require('./node_modules/react/addons', {expose: 'react'});

[insin]

This is still an issue in 6.3.3.

Say I'm doing:

b.require('superagent', {expose: 'thingy'})

The problem seems to be here - the id gets set to the expose value and nothing gets set for file:

var row = typeof file === 'object'
    ? xtend(file, opts)
    : (isExternalModule(file)
        ? xtend(opts, { id: expose || file })
        : xtend(opts, { file: file })
    )
;
if (!row.id) {
  row.id = expose || file;
}

So I get:

Error: Cannot find module 'thingy'

If I change that section to set the file and let the subsequent block deal with id:

var row = typeof file === 'object'
    ? xtend(file, opts)
    : xtend(opts, { file: file })
;
if (!row.id) {
  row.id = expose || file;
}

...then it works as expected.

I don't grok the codebase, so I don't know what the significance of the isExternalModule() check is here.

[youngjay]

+1
@insin 's fix works

[faiq]

@litek fix works as well, and doesn't require you to dig into the browserify codebase at all. It has me thinking that this might have something to do with resolving paths but I can't be too sure.

EDIT: this was a lie. It actually did not work properly for me. I set lodash's target to underscore, and that allowed backbone to use lodash but the rest of my app did not see lodash as a dependency

[faiq]

Okay I did some more digging and i found a pretty interesting difference when using the -r option with ./node_modues/whatever:target the isExternalModule(file) method returns false.

but when I do it i do it like this browserify -r whatever:target the isExternalModule(file) method returns true. this is with whatever being inside node_modules

so the real question is, is anything inside node_modules supposed to be an "external module" or is it not?