ts-transformer-strip-const-enums

A TypeScript custom transformer which strips const enum's code if preserveConstEnum is enabled and if a enum isn't exported from source file or entry points.

Why and where do you need it

1. If you have enabled preserveConstEnum compiler option and want to strip non-exported from its source file const enums.

2. Let's say you develop a library written in TypeScript and you use const enums. Some of that const enums might be exported from the public API.

   Some of your users might "compile" their code with transpileModule (e.g. by babel-loader, ts-loader with transpileOnly enabled or directly by calling transpileModule from typescript). To be sure that their code will be transpiled in this mode correctly, they very probably enable isolatedModules compiler option.

   If so, that automatically means that they just can't use const enums, exported from your library, because they will get an error TS2748: Cannot access ambient const enums when the '--isolatedModules' flag is provided.

   That error means, that after transpiling the code will not contain a code for enums in JS output, so you'll get ReferenceError in run-time.

   So, you have several options there:

   • Don't use enums (all of them) at all 🙂
   • Replace all const enums with just enums. This means that you'll lose all advantages of const enums like inlining a values.
   • Enable preserveConstEnum compiler option to generate JS code for const enums even if they will be inlined. But in this case you'll still have a const enums in your d.ts files. See microsoft/TypeScript#37774. For instance, in dts-bundle-generator you can enable respect-preserve-const-enum option and the tool will strip const from const enums in this case.

   If you choose 3, you'll get all advantages internally (inlining const enums) and don't break external code who uses transpilation over compilation.

   But here is another issue, this transformer is aim to fix - the TypeScript will generate enum code even if it's not exported. Moreover, no one minifier (I tested with Google Closure Compiler with advanced optimizations, terser, uglify-es, uglify-js) doesn't remove them, because the function has side-effects:

   const enum Enum {
       First,
   }

   goes to:

   var Enum;
   (function (Enum) {
       Enum[Enum["First"] = 0] = "First";
   })(Enum || (Enum = {}));

   This is why this transformer is here - it removes const enum's code, if they aren't exported from entry points and preserveConstEnum is enabled.

   With this transformer you'll get just ; instead of the code above:

   ;

How it works

If preserveConstEnum is enabled and the source code contains const enum, the transformer checks whether it's exported or not from either its source file or if entry points aren't empty from entry points. If it's - then do nothing (as well as when preserveConstEnum is enabled), otherwise - replace it with ;.

All your code will contain inlined values so you don't need to worry about having that "object" in JS.

Installation

1. Install the package npm i -D ts-transformer-strip-const-enums
2. Add transformer with one of possible ways

Options

entrySourceFiles

Default: []

An array of entry source files which will used to detect "global" exports. If you leave it empty, then the tool will check only const enum's source file.

Basically it should be entry point(s) of the library/project or an empty array, if you want to strip non-exported from source code const enums.

How to use the custom transformer

Unfortunately, TypeScript itself does not currently provide any easy way to use custom transformers (see microsoft/TypeScript#14419). The followings are the example usage of the custom transformer.

webpack (with ts-loader or awesome-typescript-loader)

// webpack.config.js
const stripConstEnumsTransformer = require('ts-transformer-strip-const-enums').default;

module.exports = {
  // ...
  module: {
    rules: [
      {
        test: /\.ts$/,
        loader: 'ts-loader', // or 'awesome-typescript-loader'
        options: {
          getCustomTransformers: program => ({
              before: [
                  stripConstEnumsTransformer(program, { entrySourceFiles: ['./src/index.ts'] })
              ]
          })
        }
      }
    ]
  }
};

Rollup (with rollup-plugin-typescript2)

// rollup.config.js
import typescript from 'rollup-plugin-typescript2';
import stripConstEnumsTransformer from 'ts-transformer-strip-const-enums';

export default {
  // ...
  plugins: [
    typescript({ transformers: [service => ({
      before: [ stripConstEnumsTransformer(service.getProgram(), { entrySourceFiles: ['./src/index.ts'] }) ],
      after: []
    })] })
  ]
};

ttypescript

See ttypescript's README for how to use this with module bundlers such as webpack or Rollup.

tsconfig.json:

{
  "compilerOptions": {
    // ...
    "plugins": [
      { "transform": "ts-transformer-strip-const-enums", "entrySourceFiles": ["./src/index.ts"] }
    ]
  },
  // ...
}