Why does adding this require import stop Node.js outputing to the console

Question

I am just starting on a new node project and still don't quite get how to work with external modules.

I have app.ts:

import SampleClass = require( "./sampleModule" );

console.log( "Hello Node" );

var checker: SampleClass = new SampleClass();

and sampleModule.ts:

class SampleClass {
    constructor() {
        console.log( "Hello from sample");
    }
}

export = SampleClass;

(I also tried the below which I presume is ES5 module syntax)

export class SampleClass {
    constructor() {
        console.log( "Hello from sample");
    }
}

and my tsconfig:

{
    "compilerOptions": {
        "target": "es5",
        "module": "commonjs",
        "out": "app.js",
        "diagnostics": true
    },
    "files": [
        "src/app.ts"
    ]
}

my app.js is completely empty. If I remove the import (and instantiation of the class) then the console.log appears in the app.js but with the import it is completely empty.

What am I doing wrong?

Answer 1

This has been driving me nuts! Such a simple thing but it WOULDN'T WORK!

Turns out that the problem wasn't anythign to do with the import statement but the out="app.js" in the tsconfig.json.

When compiling modules --out (or actually --outFile) is not a valid option as this is supposed to compile the whole app to one file which is not what we are doing when using external modules.