Is there a way to get the output of webpack, Node API, as a string?

Question

Is there maybe a property of stats or compiler that holds the compiled bundle?

var compiler = require('webpack')({
    entry: entry_point,
    resolve: {
        modulesDirectories: modules,
        extensions: ['', '.js']
    },
    stats: {
        colors: true,
        progress: true,
        hash: true
    }
}, function(err, stats) {
   // compiler
   // stats

});

Answer 1

It should be possible to configure the compiler to use a replacement, in-memory filesystem and retrieve the output once the compilation has completed.

Here is a sample compile() function that returns a promise that will resolve the contents of the output file:

const MemoryFs = require('memory-fs')
const webpack = require('webpack')

function compile () {
  const compiler = webpack({
    output: {
      filename: 'bundle.js',
      path: '/'
    }
  })

  compiler.outputFileSystem = new MemoryFs()

  return new Promise((resolve, reject) => {
    compiler.run((err, stats) => {
      if (err) return reject(err)

      if (stats.hasErrors() || stats.hasWarnings()) {
        return reject(new Error(stats.toString({
          errorDetails: true,
          warnings: true
        })))
      }

      const result = compiler.outputFileSystem.data['bundle.js'].toString()
      resolve({result, stats})
    })
  })
}