grunt-ts-concat

Bundle your typescript files with Grunt into a single file that when compiled with typescript compiler results in a single module that consumers of your library can import from.

Getting Started

If you haven't used Grunt before, be sure to check out the Getting Started guide, as it explains how to create a Gruntfile as well as install and use Grunt plugins. Once you're familiar with that process, you may install this plugin with this command:

npm install grunt-ts-concat

Once the plugin has been installed, it may be enabled inside your Gruntfile with this line of JavaScript:

grunt.loadNpmTasks('grunt-ts-concat');

The "ts_concat" task

Overview

In your project's Gruntfile, add a section named ts_concat to the data object passed into grunt.initConfig().

grunt.initConfig({
  ts_concat: {
    options: {
      // Task-specific options go here.
    },
    your_target: {
      // Target-specific file lists and/or options go here.
    },
  },
});

Options

options.bundles

Type: Object
Default value: null

• If you are bundling a set of typescript files that import from a different set of files that have already been bundled, you can specify that using this property.
• This is not required, but sometimes when you may wanna use this to give better modularity to your code.
• key is the path to bundle and value is an array of file paths that should be replaced with this bundle during concatenation.
• Paths inside this array can have glob patterns.
• For examples refer to Gruntfile.js.

Usage Examples

grunt.initConfig({
    ts_concat: {
        default: {
            dest: 'target/bundle.ts',
            src: 'app/**/*.ts'
        }
    }
});

Why would you use this?

For example you have following files.

//letters-validator.ts
import { SomeValidator } from "some-validator";
 
export class LettersOnlyValidator implements SomeValidator {
 
    lettersRegexp: RegExp = /^[A-Za-z]+$/;
 
    isAcceptable(s: string) {
        return this.lettersRegexp.test(s);
    }
}

//zip-code-validator.ts
import { SomeValidator } from "some-validator";
 
export class ZipCodeValidator implements SomeValidator {
    
    numberRegexp: RegExp = /^[0-9]+$/;
    
    isAcceptable(s: string) {
        return s.length === 5 && this.numberRegexp.test(s);
    }
}

Now let's say that you compile and bundle these files into a single file called main.js with typescript compiler, the result is something like this.

//main.js
 
System.register("letters-only-validator", [], function (exports_6, context_6) {
    "use strict";
    var __moduleName = context_6 && context_6.id;
    var LettersOnlyValidator;
    return {
        setters: [],
        execute: function () {
            LettersOnlyValidator = (function () {
                function LettersOnlyValidator() {
                    this.lettersRegexp = /^[A-Za-z]+$/;
                }
                LettersOnlyValidator.prototype.isAcceptable = function (s) {
                    return this.lettersRegexp.test(s);
                };
                return LettersOnlyValidator;
            }());
            exports_6("LettersOnlyValidator", LettersOnlyValidator);
        }
    };
});
 
System.register("zip-code-validator", [], function (exports_7, context_7) {
    "use strict";
    var __moduleName = context_7 && context_7.id;
    var ZipCodeValidator;
    return {
        setters: [],
        execute: function () {
            ZipCodeValidator = (function () {
                function ZipCodeValidator() {
                    this.numberRegexp = /^[0-9]+$/;
                }
                ZipCodeValidator.prototype.isAcceptable = function (s) {
                    return s.length === 5 && this.numberRegexp.test(s);
                };
                return ZipCodeValidator;
            }());
            exports_7("ZipCodeValidator", ZipCodeValidator);
        }
    };
});

and the main.d.ts file is (generated if compiler option --declaration is passed as true) [Typescript Documentation]

//main.d.ts
declare module "some-validator" {
    export interface SomeValidator {
        isAcceptable(s: String): boolean;
    }
}
declare module "letters-only-validator" {
    import { SomeValidator } from "some-validator";
    export class LettersOnlyValidator implements SomeValidator {
        lettersRegexp: RegExp;
        isAcceptable(s: string): boolean;
    }
}
declare module "zip-code-validator" {
    import { SomeValidator } from "some-validator";
    export class ZipCodeValidator implements SomeValidator {
        numberRegexp: RegExp;
        isAcceptable(s: string): boolean;
    }
}

Which means that now if someone is using your library, they have to write 2 import statements for importing these classes.

This also means that the consumer of your library should be aware of the complete folder structure of your library to import from different modules because when typescript compiler bundles files, it gives the file path as module name.

Here comes ts_concat, when you use this you can generate a bundle like below

//main.ts
import { SomeValidator } from "some-validator";
 
export class LettersOnlyValidator implements SomeValidator {
 
    lettersRegexp: RegExp = /^[A-Za-z]+$/;
 
    isAcceptable(s: string) {
        return this.lettersRegexp.test(s);
    }
}
 
export class ZipCodeValidator implements SomeValidator {
    
    numberRegexp: RegExp = /^[0-9]+$/;
    
    isAcceptable(s: string) {
        return s.length === 5 && this.numberRegexp.test(s);
    }
}

and when you compile this with typescript compiler, the result is

//main.js
System.register("main", [], function (exports_1, context_1) {
    "use strict";
    var __moduleName = context_1 && context_1.id;
    var LettersOnlyValidator, ZipCodeValidator;
    return {
        setters: [],
        execute: function () {
            LettersOnlyValidator = (function () {
                function LettersOnlyValidator() {
                    this.lettersRegexp = /^[A-Za-z]+$/;
                }
                LettersOnlyValidator.prototype.isAcceptable = function (s) {
                    return this.lettersRegexp.test(s);
                };
                return LettersOnlyValidator;
            }());
            exports_1("LettersOnlyValidator", LettersOnlyValidator);
            ZipCodeValidator = (function () {
                function ZipCodeValidator() {
                    this.numberRegexp = /^[0-9]+$/;
                }
                ZipCodeValidator.prototype.isAcceptable = function (s) {
                    return s.length === 5 && this.numberRegexp.test(s);
                };
                return ZipCodeValidator;
            }());
            exports_1("ZipCodeValidator", ZipCodeValidator);
        }
    };
});

and main.d.ts file is

//main.d.ts
declare module "main" {
    export interface SomeValidator {
        isAcceptable(s: String): boolean;
    }
    export class LettersOnlyValidator implements SomeValidator {
        lettersRegexp: RegExp;
        isAcceptable(s: string): boolean;
    }
    export class ZipCodeValidator implements SomeValidator {
        numberRegexp: RegExp;
        isAcceptable(s: string): boolean;
    }
}

So now your users can import everything and anything that they want from just one module (main in this case) and there applications won't break even if you refactor your code into different folders in some future release of your library.

There are a lot more use cases that this plugin can help you with. Some of them have been added in the test folder.

License

MIT