Npm is undefined

[s7dhansh]

Updating spacebars-compiler to 1.1.1 gives an error Npm is undefined while requiring uglify-js. Iassume it is because of 459f24f#diff-88dc7475eedf918122374be6d7c2c151L5.

Reverting to 1.1.0 works.

[mitar]

True. @sethmurphy18, can you look into this. It seems compiler.js is included also on the client side:

blaze/packages/spacebars-compiler/package.js

Line 22 in 8558cb9

'compiler.js'

And Npm.require is not available on the client side: https://github.com/meteor/blaze/blob/8558cb980428354417c282f6d011bb2a0e2adcd6/packages/spacebars-compiler/compiler.js

[mitar]

@benjamn, @abernix, can we do Npm.require in package.js, and then import ... from instead of Npm.depends? Would that work? So that import would add it both on the client and server side.

And no idea why this was not cough before.

@s7dhansh: Are you using spacebars-compiler on the client side?

[s7dhansh]

@mitar i am not using it specifically. It seems to be used by static-html. I am not sure why it would use it on the client.

[eagerestwolf]

I am not 100% sure. I know some packages on Atmosphere use this. I could add a script on the server that requires then exports it.

[Dweez]

Hello,
We could use spacebars-compiler on the client side to compile template strings stored in database. Some examples here http://stackoverflow.com/a/26923672

[mitar]

Hm, an interesting question is why we ship spacebars compiler by default to the client? This I think is strange.

[yasaricli]

Https://github.com/meteor/blaze/blob/8558cb980428354417c282f6d011bb2a0e2adcd6/packages/spacebars-compiler/package.js#L22

The file is being executed by both server and client.
The code on the client side gives an error because the (Npm.require) is on the server side.

UglifyJSMinify must be imported within the _beautify function.

[abernix]

The spacebars-compiler README.md states that it should not be loaded on the client. I'm not sure when we started deviating from that or when it changed, or if it's actually necessary on the client, but I guess we should make sure it works if some people are using it?

Did we ever get to the bottom of why we needed a beautify function at all? I found no comment or explanation or commit about the reasoning for it as far back in the Meteor repo history as I could go.

It should be possible to Npm.depends and then use require or import in the package, but that would require the inclusion of the modules or ecmascript packages within spacebars-compiler. I'd lean more toward figuring out if we can safely get rid of beautify.

[mitar]

beautify: My understanding is that it makes the template code nicer. Template code is generated by combing JavaScript snippets together through code and it would look really ugly and unreadable.

What I worry is why would people get this error, if spacebars-compiler is not available on the client by default? Or are we providing it?

Anyway, can one import a Npm.depends package using ES6 import?

[abernix]

@mitar See my ninja-edit (last paragraph) above: Yes, I believe it should be possible to Npm.depends + require/import.

What I worry is why would people get this error, if spacebars-compiler is not available on the client by default? Or are we providing it?

This is a legit concern. If they are getting this error on the client, then it must be getting included on the client for some reason. I have not had a chance to investigate more.

[mitar]

So I think the easiest and best approach is to not do beautification on the client side for now. I do not even know of use cases where people really compile blaze templates on the client side. We can see if they need this feature, we can think at that time what to do.

So I will just make it so that only server side does this.

The other two concerns I have, still unresolved, are:

• why is spacebars compiler being loaded for people who did not explicitly want it on the client side (are we bundling whole compiler for people?)
• why our tests didn't catch this issue