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Shiono Yoshihide
Shiono Yoshihide

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Why Babel with TypeScript?

#babel #typescript #javascript #webpack

At first, I wonder why Babel supports TypeScript.
And I can't imagine how to use TypeScript within Babel.

This article explains how I use TypeScript within Babel and Webpack.

TLDR

See this webpack.config.js:

module.exports = { resolve: { extensions: ['.js', '.jsx', '.ts', '.tsx'] }, module: { rules: [ { test: [/\.jsx?$/, /\.tsx?$/], use: 'babel-loader', exclude: /node_modules/ } ] } }
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Use babel-loader to /\.tsx?$/ same as /\.jsx?$/ ?!

Yes, babel-loader. I explain how to acheive this step by step.

How it works?

So simple.

Thanks to @babel/preset-typescript, we can handle /\.tsx?$/ by babel-loader.

See .babelrc below:

{ "presets": [ "@babel/typescript" ], "plugins": [ "@babel/proposal-class-properties", "@babel/proposal-object-rest-spread" ] }
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Demo

GitHub logo saltyshiomix / webpack-typescript-react-starter

Webpack + TypeScript + React = ❤️

Webpack + TypeScript + React = ❤️

Package License (MIT)

As of Babel v7, now we can handle .ts or .tsx files same as .js or .jsx files like this:

// webpack.config.js module.exports = { resolve: { extensions: ['.js', '.jsx', '.ts', '.tsx'], }, module: { rules: [ { test: [/\.jsx?$/, /\.tsx?$/], use: 'babel-loader', exclude: /node_modules/, }, ], }, }
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Use babel-loader to /\.tsx?$/ ?!

Yes, babel-loader. See .babelrc:

{ "presets": [ "@babel/env", "@babel/react", "@babel/typescript" ] }
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Thanks to @babel/preset-typescript, we can handle /\.tsx?$/ files same as /\.jsx?$/ files :)

…
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package.json is so simple and so you can imagine how to use:

{ "name": "babel-typescript-react-boilerplate", "scripts": { "check-types": "tsc", "start": "webpack-dev-server --mode development" }, "dependencies": { "react": "^16.6.3", "react-dom": "^16.6.3" }, "devDependencies": { "@babel/core": "^7.1.6", "@babel/plugin-proposal-class-properties": "^7.1.0", "@babel/plugin-proposal-object-rest-spread": "^7.0.0", "@babel/preset-env": "^7.1.6", "@babel/preset-react": "^7.0.0", "@babel/preset-typescript": "^7.1.0", "@types/react": "^16.7.6", "@types/react-dom": "^16.0.9", "babel-loader": "^8.0.4", "html-webpack-plugin": "^3.2.0", "typescript": "^3.1.6", "webpack": "^4.25.1", "webpack-cli": "^3.1.2", "webpack-dev-server": "^3.1.10" } }
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Conclusion

Before bable@7, we need to webpack JavaScript files by babel-loader and TypeScript files by ts-loader or awesome-typescript-loader.

Therefore a setting file webpack.config.js is sometimes so complex and hard to maintenance.

TypeScript with Babel makes it easier and provides us better development experience :)

Other References

TypeScript With Babel: A Beautiful Marriage

Top comments (2)

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auvansangit profile image
Sang Au •

Thank you, its a nice post. Here is my boilerplate github.com/auvansang/rtw

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grandemayta profile image
Gabriel Mayta • • Edited

It's works fine. Thanks!