Update Babel to fix issue with @babel/generator

[MrDWilson]

Webpack Version:
5.72.1

Babel Core Version:
7.19.3

Babel Loader Version:
9.1.0

Please tell us about your environment:
Windows 10

Current behavior:

When using babel-loader, some comments in JavaScript are converted incorrectly. E.g.,

// Single line comment /* with block comment inside */

is translated to

/* Single line comment /* with block comment inside */ */

This is invalid JS as the first comment end terminates the whole thing, and the second */ is treated as code (producing an error).

The actual error when building using webpack (coming from Pako in this instance, but isn't limited to this package):

ERROR in ./node_modules/@progress/pako-esm/dist/pako-esm2015.js 3476:106
Module parse failed: Unexpected token (3476:106)
File was processed with these loaders:
 * ./node_modules/babel-loader/lib/index.js
You may need an additional loader to handle the result of these loaders.
|  *     not null.
|  */
> function gen_bitlen(s, desc) /*    deflate_state *s;*/ /*    tree_desc *desc;    /* the tree descriptor */*/{
|   var tree = desc.dyn_tree;
|   var max_code = desc.max_code;

Expected/desired behavior:

It should not convert these comments.

Suggested fix:

This problem has been corrected in @babel/generator version 7.20.3 (released on the day I am posting this). Upgrading babel-loader to use this new version of the package will fix the issue.

Suggested workaround for people experiencing this issue in the meantime:

Adding an override section in your package.json with @babel/generator force updated fixes the issue for now.

"overrides": {
    "@babel/generator": "7.20.3"
}

[MrDWilson]

The release page for the new version of @babel/generator can be found here.

[JLHwung]

The overrides section is supported in npm 8.3+, and more importantly, it is meant to be used by end users, not package authors.

Currently @babel/generator is not a direct dependency of babel-loader, instead it requires a peerDependency @babel/core: ^7.12.0, which depends on @babel/generator: ^7.12.0, which covers @babel/generator: 7.20.3 per semver specification.

There is no action item for babel-loader now.

[nicolo-ribaudo]

You can just delete @babel/generator from your lockfile and run npm install to update it.