How to use the "debug" module with typescript

Question

I have an NTVS (Node Tools for Visual Studio) project with Typescript.
The following statement doesn't compile:

import debug = require('debug')('MyApp'); 

The syntax error being

(TS) ';' expected

between the the two parenthesis ')('
Is it possible to use "debug" with TypeScript?

Answer 1

From the README, debug module is exporting a function that decorates console.error with your module name (MyApp). I'm guessing there are other ways, but I use:

import Debug from "debug"; const debug = Debug("MyApp");  // then to use debug("Something happened"); 

And to print everything to the console, run your app with...

$ DEBUG=* node MyApp.js 

Answer 2

The answers here did not work for me with more recent versions of Typescript. Here's how I got it working with proper import syntax in Typescript ^3.5.3:

Install Debug package and Typescript types for Debug (types only needed for dev)

npm install --save debug npm install --save-dev @types/debug 

Then in .ts files:

import Debug from "debug"; const debug = Debug("AppName"); 

Hope this helps someone else!