Correct usage of node core modules in webpack build

Question

I am having problems building an express.js app using webpack. I suspect that I am not handling the node.js core module 'http' correctly.

To be more specific: My package.json looks like

{
  "name": "basic-express-example",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "description here",
  "main": "index.js",
  "author": "",
  "license": "ISC",
  "scripts": {
    "build": "webpack -d"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "babel-core": "^6.22.1",
    "babel-loader": "^6.2.10",
    "babel-preset-es2015": "^6.22.0",
    "babel-preset-react": "^6.22.0",
    "express": "^4.14.1",
    "webpack": "^2.2.1"
  }
}

My webpack.config.js looks like

var webpack = require('webpack');
var path = require('path');

var BUILD_DIR = path.resolve(__dirname, 'build');
var APP_DIR = path.resolve(__dirname, 'app');

var config = {
  entry: APP_DIR + '/index.jsx',
  output: {
    path: BUILD_DIR,
    filename: 'index.js'
  },
  module : {
    loaders : [
      {
        test : /\.jsx?/,
        include : APP_DIR,
        exclude : [
            /node_modules/,
            /build/
          ],
        loader : 'babel-loader'
      }
    ]
  },
  node: {
    fs: 'empty',
    net: 'empty'
  }
};

module.exports = config;

The only file in my app folder is index.jsx :

import express from 'express';
const app = express();

Now, if I build the app using npm build and then try to run the resulting file using node build/index.js , I get a type error saying

undefined:31
  __proto__: http.IncomingMessage.prototype
                             ^
TypeError: Cannot read property 'prototype' of undefined

How do I solve this problem, ie how do I make the http module available?

Thanks for any help in advance!

Answer 1

I solved it using this link by not bundling the node modules by adding the following to the webpack config:

    var fs = require('fs');

    var nodeModules = {};
    fs.readdirSync('node_modules')
    .filter(function(x) {
        return ['.bin'].indexOf(x) === -1;
    })
    .forEach(function(mod) {
        nodeModules[mod] = 'commonjs ' + mod;
    });
    ...
    externals: nodeModules,
    ...

I also tried to solve it by providing the http module externally and bundling index.jsx as a commonjs module that is then used in the same file which also provides the http import. Okay, that sounds a bit vague... Anyway, I ran into other runtime errors there...