Allow import for side effects only

[fstanis]

There are modules which I want to import only for the side effects they provide - in this case I only really need require("module"); and not var module = require("module"); - would this make sense to add?

I was thinking of something like void=module resulting in dropping the var, but then it occurred this would mean only one of these would be possible (since we can't have duplicate keys). Perhaps something like ~module would work? Happy to do a PR, if there are no objections.

[michael-ciniawsky]

What is the practical use case ? Can you give an example ?

[jazdw]

As @fstanis said, for side effects. e.g. loading an AngularJS module which depends upon another. Loading the AngularJS module doesn't return anything it just makes the module available for using from the global angular object.

e.g. using 'imports-loader?angular-animate results in code like var angular-animate = require("angular-animate"); which wont work due to the dash in the variable name.

[Backfighter]

You can checkout the inject-imports-loader I wrote which supports side-effect imports.