How to import everything exported from a file with ES2015 syntax? Is there a wildcard?

mikl picture mikl · Feb 22, 2016 · Viewed 35.1k times · Source

With ES2015 syntax, we have the new import syntax, and I've been trying to figure out how to import everything exported from one file into another, without having it wrapped in an object, ie. available as if they were defined in the same file.

So, essentially, this:

// constants.js

const MYAPP_BAR = 'bar'
const MYAPP_FOO = 'foo'
// reducers.js

import * from './constants'

console.log(MYAPP_FOO)

This does not work, at least according to my Babel/Webpack setup, this syntax is not valid.

Alternatives

This works (but is long and annoying if you need more than a couple of things imported):

// reducers.js

import { MYAPP_BAR, MYAPP_FOO } from './constants'

console.log(MYAPP_FOO)

As does this (but it wraps the consts in an object):

// reducers.js

import * as consts from './constants'

console.log(consts.MYAPP_FOO)

Is there a syntax for the first variant, or do you have to either import each thing by name, or use the wrapper object?

Answer

just-boris picture just-boris · Feb 23, 2016

You cannot import all variables by wildcard for the first variant because it causes clashing variables if you have it with the same name in different files.

//a.js
export const MY_VAR = 1;

//b.js
export const MY_VAR = 2;


//index.js
import * from './a.js';
import * from './b.js';

console.log(MY_VAR); // which value should be there?

Because here we can't resolve the actual value of MY_VAR, this kind of import is not possible.

For your case, if you have a lot of values to import, will be better to export them all as object:

// reducers.js

import * as constants from './constants'

console.log(constants.MYAPP_FOO)