React: Is main.js basically the same as index.js?

Question

I have been using the command npx create-react-app my-app to build a new React app environment. It creates a simple and generic app with the React logo. It generates folders such as public with index.html and src with your typical files such as App.css , App.js , and index.js , among others.

While studying the code for reverse engineering purposes I noticed that some projects have a file called main.js . I assume people are manually creating this file and input code similar to pre-populated index.js code (automatically created by npx create-react-app my-app ). Essentially code for routing or calling components which gets rendered.

Are these two file names interchangeable or should they serve different purposes?

Answer 1

The file name for the JS file you use as your entry point is arbitrary. Your bundler's (Webpack, Parcel, etc) configuration will determine which file it looks for.