Compiler option to combine and downgrade external modules with outFile

[govis]

As per compiler message: Only 'amd' and 'system' modules are supported alongside --outFile. It appears that it also accepts "module": "none", with no module contents being compiled into the output file.

I was wondering if we could have have this (or other option) still compile the contents but leave the module semantics out instead?

Given that in a combined .js file modules lose their benefit, would it not make sense to replace resulting System.register(system) define(amd) with plain IIFEs in this case?

[RyanCavanaugh]

Duplicate of #4434 ?

[govis]

It looks like #4434 is way too broad and suggests preserving ES6 module semantics - why preserve modules in a combined .js file?

#7671 is closer to what I was thinking - convert modules to simple IIFEs while concatenating. Something similar to rollup's --format iife while leveraging tsc options for choosing which files to include and exclude.

A use case would be generating down-level .js file from module-based sources for <script nomodule> tag to fallback when (ES6) modules are not supported by the browser. Kind of opposite from what #4434 is trying to achieve when it comes to module semantics. Thanks.

[mhegazy]

It looks like #4434 is way too broad and suggests preserving ES6 module semantics - why preserve modules in a combined .js file?

cause this is what users expect from a compiler, to have consistent semantics :)

#7671 is closer to what I was thinking - convert modules to simple IIFEs while concatenating. Something similar to rollup's --format iife while leveraging tsc options for choosing which files to include and exclude.

ES6 is the standard of the web, it has a well defined concept of modules, and we believe this is where most future investments would be. we are not planning on adding a new module format.

We believe this is job better left to other tools like rollup, systemjs, webpack.. etc..

[mhegazy]

Automatically closing this issue for housekeeping purposes. The issue labels indicate that it is unactionable at the moment or has already been addressed.