Problem importing a module from an express app in a script outside of express

Question

I have a vanilla Express app whose package.json looks like this:

{
  "name": "express-app",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "main": "app.js",
  "dependencies": {
    ...
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    ...
  },
  "scripts": {
    ...
  },
}

And I want to write a script outside the express app that imports a module from the express app. The module resides in ./src/model/Example.js That module also imports various other modules.

The script is located at ./scripts/test.mjs and does:

import Example from '../src/models/Example.js';

However, I'm getting this hitting the first import from Example.js:

SyntaxError: Cannot use import statement outside a module

How do I structure this such that the script can import the module correctly?

Answer 1

It is because your project in vanilla JS, the import statement is not going to work. You can use parceljs a zero config package bundler which supports ES6 and above syntax to use it first add it as a dev dependency by running

npm install parcel-bundler --save-dev

And then add to scripts to your package

{
  "scripts": {
    "dev": "parcel <your entry file>",
    "build": "parcel build <your entry file>"
  }
}

replace the entry file with your main file in your code (example: app.js)

Answer 2

did you try

          const Example = require('../src/models/Example.js') 

Answer 3

The modern way to do that is on yow package.json Add a property call type and set the value of module

{
“name”;”project name”,
…
“type”;”module”,
…
“dependencies”:”….”,
}

by default nodejs treads yow code as type: commons It is why it says you cannot use import out side a module, bcuz yow package.json implicitly marks yow codes as type commonjs. So after you set type module then you need to change the extension of them JavaScript files, from .js to .mjs. Yes you guessed right the m is from module. You can do this or configure Babel, webpack, while you find the holy grail and what ever else is need it