publish es6 modules to npm

[robrez]

I was looking to use pdf.js today via something like import {pdfjs} from pdfjs-dist/pdf.js and learned that all that is available is a require module.

Would it be possible to add es6 modules somewhere on npm?

[bennypowers]

In an ideal world, src should be refactored as standard modules. If CJS is still needed, it could be automatically built (say, in a cjs directory) using rollup or other similar tools, or better yet - left up to the user to generate (node users could easily use the esm module to enable es module syntax in node apps). That would allow library users to choose if, when, and how to bundle or transpile.

If there's interest, I'd be happy to provide a PR.

[robrez]

As an interim workaround, we've published this:

https://github.com/bundled-es-modules/pdfjs-dist
https://www.npmjs.com/package/@bundled-es-modules/pdfjs-dist

[amundo]

Is this the bundled-es-modules/pdfjs-dist repo still relevant or has module functionality been rolled into this main distribution? There seem to be “components” in this repo.

[daKmoR]

the published pdfjs-dist still seems to not have es modules?

• https://unpkg.com/browse/[email protected]/build/pdf.js => UMD
• https://unpkg.com/browse/[email protected]/lib/pdf.js => commonjs

or is there another distribution somewhere?

[xiaoxiangmoe]

@timvandermeij any update on this?

node_modules/ng2-pdf-viewer/__ivy_ngcc__/fesm2015/ng2-pdf-viewer.js depends on 'pdfjs-dist/build/pdf'. CommonJS or AMD dependencies can cause optimization bailouts.

[rondonjon]

@bennypowers:

If there's interest, I'd be happy to provide a PR.

That would be very helpful.

[janetlee]

Hi! Commenting to give this a bump. I would love this to be tree-shakeable since I do not actually need pdfjs-dist. I have a broken TS config (Which I am trying to fix) but tree-shaking would eliminate this error being thrown in the first place.
wojtekmaj/react-pdf#280 (comment)

[zenflow]

This is a big issue as the JS package ecosystem migrates from CommonJS to ESM. The migration has progressed a lot since this issue was opened in 2018, and ESM is now very much standard, and nowhere near bleeding-edge (especially on frontend, as opposed to on nodejs which is another story).

Webpack can still handle this, but next-gen bundlers like Vite cannot.

@Snuffleupagus Any plan to publish ES Modules to catch up with the ecosystem?

[zenflow]

#10317 (comment):

the published pdfjs-dist still seems to not have es modules?

https://unpkg.com/browse/[email protected]/build/pdf.js => UMD
https://unpkg.com/browse/[email protected]/lib/pdf.js => commonjs
or is there another distribution somewhere?

https://github.com/mozilla/pdf.js/blob/master/src/pdf.js => ES modules

This project is developed with ES modules, but the src/ dir just isn't published in the package on NPM.

Seems like this would be an easy fix, no?

[Snuffleupagus]

Any plan to publish ES Modules to catch up with the ecosystem?

Please keep in mind that the primary focus of development for this library is the Firefox PDF Viewer.

For the general PDF.js library, we've been doing various work (over the years) to clean-up and simplify things in order to reduce the number of builds that we have to maintain/support. Hence why we provide both browser and Node.js support in the same builds in e.g. pdfjs-dist, and thus it's not currently planned to add any "new" builds.

This project is developed with ES modules, but the src/ dir just isn't published in the package on NPM.

And neither should it be, since the only thing that we officially support is the functionality accessed via https://github.com/mozilla/pdf.js/blob/master/src/pdf.js respectively https://github.com/mozilla/pdf.js/blob/master/web/pdf_viewer.component.js (once those files are built and and published in pdfjs-dist).

Please keep in mind that using the "raw" src/-files directly has never be officially recommended nor supported. (Hence the only thing that may, some day in the future, become supported are ESM-versions of the files in e.g. the https://github.com/mozilla/pdfjs-dist/tree/master/build and https://github.com/mozilla/pdfjs-dist/tree/master/web folders.)

Seems like this would be an easy fix, no?

Not really, since as mentioned above we don't want to add even more builds and we also want to support both browsers and Node.js environments with the same builds.

[justinfagnani]

Node package exports would allow you to publish plain, unbundled modules but only allow importing specific entry points.

Node has also supported modules for the last 7 major and 4 LTS versions, so you could still keep one build for both (modulo using environment specific API like DOM and process.env).

[arcs-]

This would be a great addition to have in 2023