Angular 5 webpack 3 aot

Question

I'm trying to make an aot build with webpack 3 and angular 5, but there are so many tutorials on the net and none show complete example without questions, so far I've got the following configuration: (For those who have questions about paths - I use it in the java app)

webpack.config.aot.js:

const webpack = require("webpack");
const ExtractTextPlugin = require("extract-text-webpack-plugin");
const ngToolsWebpack = require('@ngtools/webpack');

module.exports = {
    context: __dirname + "/src/main/webapp/resources/script/",
    entry: {
        app: "./core/main.aot.ts",
        vendor: "./vendor.ts",
        polyfills: "./polyfills.ts"
    },
    output: {
        filename: 'js/[name].js',
        chunkFilename: "js/chunks/[id].chunk.js",
        publicPath: "resources/compiled/",
        path: __dirname + '/src/main/webapp/resources/compiled'
    },
    resolve: {
        alias: {
            STYLES: __dirname + "/src/main/webapp/resources/css/",
            SCRIPT: __dirname + "/src/main/webapp/script/"
        },
        extensions: [".js", ".json", ".scss", ".ts"]
    },
    module: {
        rules: [
            {
                test: /[\/]angular\.js$/,
                loader: 'exports-loader?angular'
            },
            {
                test: /\.html$/,
                loader: 'raw-loader'
            },
            {
                test: /(?:\.ngfactory\.js|\.ngstyle\.js|\.ts)$/,
                loader: '@ngtools/webpack'
            }
        ]
    },
    plugins: [
        new ngToolsWebpack.AngularCompilerPlugin({
            tsConfigPath: './tsconfig.aot.json',
            entryModule: './src/main/webapp/resources/script/core/i18n/app.module.en#AppModule'
        })
    ]
};

tsconfig.aot.json:

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    "module": "es2015",
    "moduleResolution": "node",
    "target": "es5",
    "noImplicitAny": false,
    "sourceMap": true,
    "mapRoot": "",
    "emitDecoratorMetadata": true,
    "experimentalDecorators": true,
    "lib": [
      "es2015",
      "dom"
    ],
    "outDir": "lib",
    "skipLibCheck": true,
    "rootDir": "."
  },
  "exclude": [
    "node_modules/*",
    "target/*"
  ],
  "angularCompilerOptions": {
    "genDir": "./src/main/webapp/resources/script/factory",
    "rootDir": ".",
    "baseUrl": "/"
  }
}

main.aot.ts:

import {platformBrowser} from '@angular/platform-browser';
import {enableProdMode} from "@angular/core";
import {AppModuleNgFactory} from '../factory/app/app.module.ngfactory';

enableProdMode();

platformBrowser().bootstrapModuleFactory(AppModuleNgFactory);

File structure(simplified):

- webpack.config.aot.js
- tsconfig.aot.js
- src/
  - main/
    - webapp/
      - resources/
        - script/
          - vendor.ts
          - polyfills.ts
          - core/
            - main.aot.ts
            - i18n/
              - app.module.en.ts

(Please let me know if I haven't showed something relevant)

So when I'm tring to build it using webpack -p --config ./webpack.config.aot.js

I get following error:

ERROR in src/main/webapp/resources/script/core/main.aot.ts(5,34): error TS2307: Cannot find module '../factory/app/app.module.ngfactory'.

Which sound pretty legitimate as there is no AppModuleNgFactory there, but as i looked in tutorials it is supposed to be generated upon aot build, using genDir, am I right? (please not that if i omit app/ folder, so path looks '../factory/app.module.ngfactory' i get the same error)

Is it right to point at the non-existing AppModuleNgFactory on the aot build with @ngtools/webpack?

What is that AppModuleNgFactory? There is little to no documentation about anythig of it on the angular site

What should I change in my config to successfully generate aot build?

If I change main file to bootstrap AppModule itself, it builds successfully, but in browser i get NullInjectorError: No provider for t! error

Without minification it shows: No provider for CompilerFactory!

Answer 1

It appears that @ngtools/webpack could handle bootstraping module factory itself from original main file, eg webpack entry should be : path_to_file/main.ts

and main.ts contains:

platformBrowserDynamic().bootstrapModule(AppModule);

And whole thing will be handled itself, no additional configs!

It is really amazing