using grpc with webpack?

[slootzky]

Hey ,
using google's pubsub node client and it depends on grp which depends on node-pre-gyp.
when using webpack (for serverless functions) I get the following runtime error :

package.json does not exist at...

this comes from pre-bindings.js :
if (!existsSync(package_json_path)) { throw new Error("package.json does not exist at " + package_json_path); }

and this because in grpc_extensions.js is using __dirname and then relative path :

var binding_path = binary.find(path.resolve(path.join(__dirname, '../../../package.json')));

[murgatroid99]

There's a bigger problem with using webpack: gRPC uses a Node C++ addon that interfaces with low-level Node C APIs. It's not going to work except on Node.

[wenbozhu]

@slootzky We haven't yet released grpc-web which uses a different stack than grpc (due to browser limitation). Once grpc-web is available, we should consider making it deployable in Node (webpack etc).

If you need early access to grpc-web, let me know.

[slootzky]

seems like it's also doesn't work on a nodejs Azure function

[wenbozhu]

This is a separate issue, i.e. making grpc calls from Azure functions. We should verify.

[murgatroid99]

@slootzky Can you elaborate? What problems did you experience when you tried to use gRPC in a Node.js Azure function?

[slootzky]

@murgatroid99 it's because azure functions runs over edgejs
I got the same behaviour as this SO question

[raviqqe]

By the way, the code in grpc_extensions.js @slootzky specified should use something like require("PATH") so that bundlers and optimizers like webpack, rollup, and prepack can detect loading files in external directories. I believe that bundling and optimization of JS code are getting popular even on server-side nowadays.

[slootzky]

@raviqqe totally agree , especially when things like prepack become more stable , I think runtime optimization is always more than welcome.
Think that there shouldn't be boundaries between pure node.js to bundlers like webpack / react-native packager etc.

[rogerbell82]

Totally Agree.
Webpack / React are so popular now.
Its disappointing that I cannot integrate Google Cloud modules such as Vision into my project.

[raviqqe]

It seems to be impossible because of limitation of node-pre-gyp's API.

[bradennapier]

this sucks....,. you broke my entire app with this bs... there is no way to use any google products with any serverless products now... how do i make these work? ??????????

i dont give two shits about anything but node but this does not work on node either so.... uhh... .yeah......

Error: package.json does not exist at /package.json
    at Object.t.find (/Users/bradennapier/Desktop/Dash OS/IDE/projects/dash-lambda-apex/nodejs/functions/util_firebase/lib/index.js:1451:10748)
    at Object.<anonymous> (/Users/bradennapier/Desktop/Dash OS/IDE/projects/dash-lambda-apex/nodejs/functions/util_firebase/lib/index.js:154:26)
    at Object.<anonymous> (/Users/bradennapier/Desktop/Dash OS/IDE/projects/dash-lambda-apex/nodejs/functions/util_firebase/lib/index.js:154:183)
    at t (/Users/bradennapier/Desktop/Dash OS/IDE/projects/dash-lambda-apex/nodejs/functions/util_firebase/lib/index.js:1:177)

why would you close something that is clearly still a bug

[ondrowan]

@bradennapier You can exclude node_modules from webpack config using webpack-node-externals plugin or by defining externals manually. That way you can keep using libraries that depend on grpc with serverless framework. Another option is to not use serverless framework and webpack. There are other options how to deploy applications to Lambda, Kubeless etc.