What does import * do in Javascript?

Question

I was browsing through this repo on Github and was trying to comprehend the working of the code

Here, the author (or programmer) have mentioned import * at multiple places so I am trying to comprehend and understand how import * work?

First in Game.js file of his repo he have mentioned/written like this

import * as actions from '../actions';

In VS Code, when if I click on '../actions using command It is redirecting me to this file -> index.js

then in Index.js they have something like this

import * as ActionTypes from './action-types';

when I click on ./action-types it redirects me to here action-types.js

I went through firefox docs but I wasn't able to clearly make sense for the first example like for one, the action folder contains multiple files and how does import * as actions from '../actions'; mean index.js file

While i get he have called/referenced the functions using actions.functionName() or ActionType.TypeName

My Prime question remains

how does import * as actions from '../actions'; mean index.js file ?

Answer 1

The import * as name syntax imports all exported content of a javascript file.

For example, if you want to import an entire module's contents, then access the doAllTheAmazingThings() function

import * as myModule from '/modules/my-module.js';
myModule.doAllTheAmazingThings();

From the docs

Answer 2

Import in js is new syntax of ES6 to import a module it has the same work of require but its easier to filter what do you want in a module

In your example you import * as actions from '../actions'; you import all function from ../actions file

its same to do const actions = require('../actions')

but its easier to manage what you want

this syntax is not work on all browser so be sure to use transpiler with babel or other

you can see this syntax in python too