Angular 5 - How to generate definition files

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I have been trying several ways but I am not able to understand how to generate definition files for my project. I have two angular-cli generated applications A and B, I want A to consume B as a package (with npm link). As far as I understand I need to create an index.ts file in project B with all the modules I want to export and run 'ng build' command. I have seen that only creates the bundles but not the definition files, how can I generate definition files? Is this the correct approach?.

I have tried some other options like 'rollup' and 'ngmakelib' but it seems to be pretty hard to do that simple task. Do we have an easy way to generate Angular 5 projects as libraries and consume that libraries from another projects?

1 Answers

At a high level, here are the steps you would need to do to create a reusable Angular module (all done without webpack):

  1. Create a public_api.ts file within your src folder. This should contain all your exported symbols, so that users of your library can do: import { symbol } from 'your-library'

  2. Copy your src folder to a build/dist folder making sure to inline your templates. I use gulp and gulp-inline-ng2-template for this.

gulpfile.js

    const gulp = require('gulp');
    const replace = require('gulp-replace');
    const inlineNg2Template = require('gulp-inline-ng2-template');
    const del = require('del');

    gulp.task('clean', function () {
        return del([
           "dist/**"
        ], { force: true });
    });


    gulp.task('copy-public-api', ['clean'], function () {
        return gulp.src([
            '../src/public_api.ts'
        ])
        .pipe(replace('./app', './src'))
        .pipe(gulp.dest('dist'))

    });
    gulp.task('copy-src', ['copy-public-api'], function () {
        return gulp.src([
           '../src/app/**/*.ts',
           '!../src/app/**/*.spec.ts'
        ])
        .pipe(inlineNg2Template({ base: '../src', useRelativePaths: true }))
        .pipe(gulp.dest('dist/src'))
    });

public_api.ts

    export * from './app/app.module';
    // ... other exports ...
  1. Create a tsconfig file for ngc. You'll be using ngc to generate the necessary metadata files. Here are the settings that I use. The file is placed in a "build" folder (notice the relative paths for typeRoots and paths).

build/tsconfig.json

    {
        "compilerOptions": {
            "baseUrl": ".",
            "rootDir": ".",
            "outDir": "",
            "paths": {
                "*": [
                    "../node_modules/*"
                ]
            },             
            "declaration": true,
            "stripInternal": true,
            "noImplicitAny": true,
            "strictNullChecks": true,
            "noFallthroughCasesInSwitch": true,
            "moduleResolution": "node",
            "module": "es2015",
            "target": "es5",
            "lib": [
                "es2015",
                "dom"
            ],
            "skipLibCheck": true,
            "typeRoots": [     
                "../node_modules/@types/"  
            ], 
            "experimentalDecorators": true,
            "emitDecoratorMetadata": true,
            "sourceMap": true,
            "inlineSources": true
        },
        "files": [
            "dist/public_api.ts"
        ],
        "angularCompilerOptions": {
            "annotateForClosureCompiler": true,
            "strictMetadataEmit": false,
            "skipTemplateCodegen": true,
            "flatModuleOutFile": "index.js",
            "flatModuleId": "ng-module-template"
        }    

    }

The angularCompilerOptions ensure that one metadata file is created (index.js).

  1. Use ngc to compile the module from the build folder. Make sure to install @angular/compiler and @angular/compiler-cli:

    ../node_modules/.bin/ngc -p tsconfig.json
    
  2. Deploy only the files that are needed. I deploy from build\dist to dist:

    gulp.task('build', [], function (done) {
        gulp.src([
            'dist/index.js',
            'dist/public_api.js',
            'dist/index.metadata.json',
            'dist/**/*.d.ts',
            '!../src/app/**/*.spec.ts'
        ], { base: 'dist' })
            .pipe(gulp.dest('../dist'))
            .on('end', function () {
                del('dist/**', { force: true }).then(function () {
                    done();
                });
            });
    });
    
  3. Make sure you modify your package.json to point to index.js:

    {
      "name": "ng-module-template",
      "version": "1.0.0",
      "description": "",
      "main": "dist/index.js",
      "typings": "dist/index.d.ts",
    }
    

Optional: Creating Bundles

Here is a gulp build target for compiling and creating bundles using rollup with treeshaking:

gulp.task('compile', ['copy-src'], function (done) {
    gulp.src('tsconfig.json')
        .pipe(shell(['"../node_modules/.bin/ngc" -p <%= file.path %>']))
        .on('end', function () {
            del('node_modules/**', { force: true }).then(function () {
                done();
            });
        });
});

gulp.task('bundle', ['compile'], function (done) {
    var external = [
        '@angular/core',
        '@angular/common',
        '@angular/compiler',
        '@angular/core',
        '@angular/http',
        '@angular/platform-browser',
        '@angular/platform-browser-dynamic',
        '@angular/router',
        '@angular/router-deprecated'
    ];

    var globals = {
        '@angular/core': 'vendor._angular_core',
        '@angular/http': 'vendor._angular_http',
        '@angular/platform-browser': 'vendor._angular_platformBrowser',
        '@angular/platform-browser-dynamic': 'vendor._angular_platformBrowserDynamic',
        '@angular/router-deprecated': 'vendor._angular_routerDeprecated'
    };

    rollup.rollup({
        input: 'dist/index.js',
        onwarn: function (warning) {
            if (warning.message.indexOf("treating it as an external dependency") > -1)
                return;


            console.warn(warning.message);
        }

    }).then(function (bundle) {
        var umd = bundle.write({
            file: `dist/bundles/${pkg.name}.umd.js`,
            format: 'umd',
            exports: 'named',
            name: pkg.name,
            sourcemap: true,
            external: external,
            globals: globals
        });
        var cjs = bundle.write({
            file: `dist/bundles/${pkg.name}.cjs.js`,
            format: 'cjs',
            exports: 'named',
            name: pkg.name,
            sourcemap: true,
            external: external,
            globals: globals
        });
        var amd = bundle.write({
            file: `dist/bundles/${pkg.name}.amd.js`,
            format: 'amd',
            exports: 'named',
            name: pkg.name,
            sourcemap: true,
            external: external,
            globals: globals
        });

        var es = bundle.write({
            file: `dist/index.es5.js`,
            format: 'es',
            exports: 'named',
            name: pkg.name,
            sourcemap: true,
            external: external,
            globals: globals

        });

        return Promise.all([umd, cjs, amd, es]).then(function () {
            done();
        });

    });
});

Source Code Demo

Pre-requisites

Angular5+
Git (installed locally if you are publishing to a local folder)

https://github.com/angular-patterns/ng-module-template

Build Targets

npm run dev

For development

npm run build

For production app build (outputs to dist folder)

npm run build-module

For a module build (outputs to dist folder)

npm run publish

For publishing to c:\packages using git. Alternatively, run npm publish to publish to npm.

npm run name-module -- --(module-name)

For naming the module. This modifies the source.

Installing from c:\packages

npm install c:\packages\<module-name>
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