CODEWITHSUNDEEP
node.jsmoduleecmascript-6transpiler
Alex Gusev
Alex Gusev

Reputation: 1854

Use ES6 'import' statement without transpilers

I have nodejs v8

$ node -v
v8.1.3

and a script:

import cmd from "commander";

There is an error "Unexpected token import" when I try to launch this script:

$ node script.js
/.../script.js:1
(function (exports, require, module, __filename, __dirname) { import cmd from "commander";
                                                              ^^^^^^

    SyntaxError: Unexpected token import

Does any method exist to use ES6 modules ("import" statement) without transpiler?

Upvotes: 3

Views: 1177

Answers (2)

Rommel Santor
Rommel Santor

Reputation: 1011

The accepted answer is no longer the correct answer. In NodeJS 4+, you can now enable ES modules by installing the @std/esm package and calling your script with the -r @std/esm option on the command line. For example:

node -r @std/esm index.js

Note that in order to have Node auto-detect if a file should use ESM (to allow you to use .js file extensions instead of using the Michael Jackson solution, .mjs), you'll have to add to your package.json the following:

"@std/esm": { "esm": "js" },

See full details at standard-things/esm on GitHub.

Upvotes: 10

Alberto Trindade Tavares
Alberto Trindade Tavares

Reputation: 10366

Without using transpiler, you have to use require:

const cmd = require('commander');

Upvotes: 1

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