Transitioning away from bundled Javascript for local debugging

Question

Transitioning away from bundled Javascript for local debugging

My current tasks on the gulpfile.js for my frontend app involve a serve task that handles the following:

Processing less files
Bundling all javascripts into dist/bundle.js
Uglifying dist/bundle.js

However, this setup made local debugging difficult. To address this issue, I introduced a new task called serve:debug, initially excluding the uglification of dist/bundle.js.

gulp.task('serve:debug', ['less', 'bundle', 'watch'], function () {
    runServer('http://localhost/app/login.html')
});

This enables me to debug the code easily with human-readable JavaScript. But, since all files are still bundled together and the application explicitly imports dist/bundle.js in index.html:

<script src="dist/bundle.js"></script>

If I remove the bundle task from serve:debug, the application will no longer be able to reach dist/bundle.js.

Question: What are some best practices when it comes to importing JavaScript files in such scenarios?

javascript npm gulp

Answer 1

Answer №1

If you want to incorporate inline sourcemaps into your bundle, consider using the gulp-sourcemaps package. By doing so, the browser's developer tools will render the source code as if it were from the original files, even though it's actually served in a bundle.

To implement this feature, follow a structure similar to the following code snippet:

const sourcemaps = require('gulp-sourcemaps');

gulp.task('bundle', function() {
  gulp.src('src/**/*.js')
    .pipe(sourcemaps.init())
      .pipe(bundle())
    .pipe(sourcemaps.write())
    .pipe(gulp.dest('dist'));
});

If you're interested in understanding more about how source maps function, check out this informative guide: http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/developertools/sourcemaps/

Answer 2

If you want to incorporate inline sourcemaps into your bundle, consider using the gulp-sourcemaps package. By doing so, the browser's developer tools will render the source code as if it were from the original files, even though it's actually served in a bundle.

To implement this feature, follow a structure similar to the following code snippet:

const sourcemaps = require('gulp-sourcemaps');

gulp.task('bundle', function() {
  gulp.src('src/**/*.js')
    .pipe(sourcemaps.init())
      .pipe(bundle())
    .pipe(sourcemaps.write())
    .pipe(gulp.dest('dist'));
});

If you're interested in understanding more about how source maps function, check out this informative guide: http://www.html5rocks.com/en/tutorials/developertools/sourcemaps/

Transitioning away from bundled Javascript for local debugging

Answer №1

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