TSPath

TypeScript Path Alias Resolver

Important update

The issues with the basePath relative to the outDir have now been corrected... until someone says something else ;)

So what is it?

Everyone working in a TypeScript project that grows beyond a certains limit will eventually experience the situation commonly described as path hell, the snippet below is an example of such hell.

Path hell

 import { IgniterApplication } from "../../../Application/IgniterApplication";
 import { CrcCalculator }      from "../../../../../../../Utilities/FileUtilities";
 import { IMessageHandler }    from "../../../../Messaging/IMessageHandler";
 import { IMessageHub }        from "../../../../Messaging/Hub/IMessageHub";
 import { CronTabHelper }      from "../../../../../../../Utilities/CronTabHelper";
 import { GLog }               from "../../../Application/GLog";

Configuration

By specifying path aliases in tsconfig.json you can use that alias to form an "absolute path"

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    ...
    "paths": {
      "@App/*":         ["./Application/*"],
      "@Messaging/*":   ["./Messaging/*"],
      "@Utils/*":       ["./Server/Tools/Utilities/*"]
    }
  }
}

For full compability with the internal JavaScript parser,
specify es5 as target.

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "target": "es5"
     ...
    }
}

Below is the sample example but with Path Aliases instead of relative paths added, as you can see, the readability have improved significantly!

 import { IgniterApplication } from "@App/IgniterApplication";
 import { CrcCalculator }      from "@Utils/FileUtilities";
 import { IMessageHandler }    from "@Messaging/IMessageHandler";
 import { IMessageHub }        from "@Messaging/Hub/IMessageHub";
 import { CronTabHelper }      from "@Utils/CronTabHelper";
 import { GLog }               from "@App/GLog";

The TypeScript compiler will be able to resolve the paths so this will compile without problems, however the JavaScript output will not be possible to execute by Node nor a Web Browser, why? the reason is simple!

The JavaScript engine does not know anything about the compile time TypeScript configuration.

In order to run your JavaScript code, the path aliases now needs to be made into relative paths again, here is when Const comes into play.

So, simply run:

$ tspath

Yes, that´s it, really!

Running headless, slip in a -f in order to bypass the confirmation prompt.

$ tspath -f

Say bye bye to the relative path hell!

<<<<<<< HEAD

Const

TypeScript Path Alias Resolver

---

⚠️ Important! There have been reports of shaky behaviour when tspath is run with node 9.x, I am looking into the issue, if one of you who reported it happened to see where the problem occurs, please share :)

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Everyone working in a TypeScript project that grows beyond a certains limit will eventually experience the situation commonly described as path hell, the snippet below is an example of such hell.

Path hell

 import { IgniterApplication } from "../../../Application/IgniterApplication";
 import { CrcCalculator }      from "../../../../../../../Utilities/FileUtilities";
 import { IMessageHandler }    from "../../../../Messaging/IMessageHandler";
 import { IMessageHub }        from "../../../../Messaging/Hub/IMessageHub";
 import { CronTabHelper }      from "../../../../../../../Utilities/CronTabHelper";
 import { GLog }               from "../../../Application/GLog";

By specifying path aliases in tsconfig.json you can use that alias to form an "absolute path"

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    ...
    "paths": {
      "@App/*":         ["./Application/*"],
      "@Messaging/*":   ["./Messaging/*"],
      "@Utils/*":       ["./Server/Tools/Utilities/*"]
    }
  }
}

Below is the sample example but with Path Aliases instead of relative paths added, as you can see, the readability have improved significantly!

 import { IgniterApplication } from "@App/IgniterApplication";
 import { CrcCalculator }      from "@Utilils/FileUtilities";
 import { IMessageHandler }    from "@Messaging/IMessageHandler";
 import { IMessageHub }        from "@Messaging/Hub/IMessageHub";
 import { CronTabHelper }      from "@Utils/CronTabHelper";
 import { GLog }               from "@App/GLog";

The TypeScript compiler will be able to resolve the paths so this will compile without problems, however the JavaScript output will not be possible to execute by Node nor a Web Browser, why? the reason is simple!

The JavaScript engine does not know anything about the compile time TypeScript configuration.

In order to run your JavaScript code, the path aliases now needs to be made into relative paths again, here is when Const comes into play.

So, simply run:

$ tspath

Yes, that´s it, really!

Options

Arg	Type	Description	Default
-f	boolean	optional - skip the confirmation prompt displayed before tspath parses the project (e.g. tspath -f)	false
-c	boolean	optional - do not include superfluous whitespace characters and line terminators (e.g. tspath -c)	false

Skipping files

To skip any file in your project, include the following comment anywhere in the file to skip:

// tspath:skip-file

Say bye bye to the relative path hell!

Options

Arg	Type	Description	Default
-f	boolean	optional - skip the confirmation prompt displayed before tspath parses the project (e.g. tspath -f)	false

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