Add ability to configure TypeScript Node from tsconfig.json

[blakeembrey]

Since the module could end up being used in a lot of different environments (E.g. gulp), there should be a way to configure it via config file or environment. Since tsconfig.json already exists, I'd say we piggy back off it and add a typescript-node property to the object.

[ghost23]

Hi,

in the source code I see, that the tsconfig.json is already being read. This leads to some issues with my project. My project looks like this:

/src/my/typescript/**/files.ts
/test/tests.ts
/tsconfig.json

When running tsc here everythings works as expected. But when I run mocha --compilers ts:ts-node/register it also loads the tsconfig.json and gets confused with the paths, because the tsconfig says, all ts files would be located in src. But obviously the tests aren't. Also it builds the paths wrong, e.g. it searches in: /tsconfig.json/src/../.. So the tsconfig.json filename is in the path.

If I temporarily rename the tsconfig.json to something different and run mocha again, everything works just fine.

So I guess, having the ability to ignore the tsconfig for ts-node would be nice, although I am not sure, how this could be done in conjunction with mocha. Do you have any suggestion?

[blakeembrey]

@ghost23 Can you please elaborate on the issue you're having. It's likely you're having a different issue, but I don't have enough details to understand what it is. I'm using it with tests all the time, and I absolutely need to load from tsconfig.json to make sure I load definition files. I'll add a --no-project option, but it's not really the correct fix here.

You say that tsconfig.json is in the paths. How did you find that? All the tsconfig.json parsing logic is https://github.com/TypeStrong/tsconfig/blob/master/src/tsconfig.ts#L195-L213 and I haven't seen that before.

[ghost23]

Hi, when I run the mocha command, I get the following error, that's why I said, it is in the path:

mocha --compilers ts:ts-node/register

⨯ Unable to compile TypeScript

File 'C:/Users/me/projects/ts-test/src/analysis/body_traverser.ts' is not under 'rootDir' 'C:/Users/me/projects/ts-test/tsconfig.json/src'. 'rootDir' is expected to contain all source files. (6059)
File 'C:/Users/me/projects/ts-test/src/analysis/node_worker.ts' is not under 'rootDir' 'C:/Users/me/projects/ts-test/tsconfig.json/src'. 'rootDir' is expected to contain all source files. (6059)
File 'C:/Users/me/projects/ts-test/src/analysis/scope_detector.ts' is not under 'rootDir' 'C:/Users/me/projects/ts-test/tsconfig.json/src'. 'rootDir' is expected to contain all source files. (6059)
File 'C:/Users/me/projects/ts-test/test/test.ts' is not under 'rootDir' 'C:/Users/me/projects/ts-test/tsconfig.json/src'. 'rootDir' is expected to contain all source files. (6059)

npm ERR! Test failed. See above for more details.

You see, the first three files really are in the src directory, whereas the last one is the test.ts itself, which is not in the src directory, but the test directory. Anyway, the errors state, that the path for rootDir is expected to be ..../projects/ts-test/tsconfig.json/src

My tsconfig.json file looks like this:

{
"compilerOptions": {
"module": "commonjs",
"noImplicitAny": true,
"listFiles": true,
"removeComments": true,
"preserveConstEnums": true,
"rootDir": "./src",
"outDir": "./built",
"sourceMap": true
}
}

[blakeembrey]

@ghost23 Thanks for the response, looks like tsconfig might not be handling rootDir properly when there's no files specified. However, this is a TypeScript error caused by the files outside of rootDir. The only fix here is to add --no-project, which I'll do now, or to change rootDir option.

It also might be worth it, from ts-node, to override that option because it's invalid here - thoughts on that?

[blakeembrey]

As far as I can see, tsconfig is correct in loading everything still. The tsconfig file is a bit of a mess, to be honest, and doesn't work how I'd expect it to. If I recall, I did the same thing writing typings and found the easiest change was to move tsconfig.json into src/ otherwise tsc finds everything and gives the same error. That may be a bug in tsc though. Have you tried compiling with tsc?

[ghost23]

Yes, when I compile with tsc, everything works as expected. Of course, I am not compiling the tests then, which is the way I want it. I only want the tests to compile on the fly during the mocha test.

[blakeembrey]

@ghost23 Weird, and you don't have a files array at all? I'd say that is definitely have a bug in tsconfig then, but I'm going to quickly replicate it. Then I'll patch ts-node with a couple of new options, but I think the best approach for ts-node is to override the rootDir options - it's only used for compilation as far as I can tell.

[ghost23]

The way I understand it is, when you run tsc only with rootDir, it takes everything and ONLY everything in that directory and compiles it. So no need for a files array. Quite comfortable in my view :)

[blakeembrey]

@ghost23 Right, I understand. It's just last time I tried that, it wasn't working and I'm trying to recall why. Most likely, it was the usage of the typings/ directory in the root which was breaking things and making rootDir unusable. It's based on input files, and not output structure, which was the issue. Anyway, it's unrelated, was just trying to find the issues that exist in my head.

[ghost23]

Oh, I forgot to mention that I also have a typings directory in root. Sorry. Now that you say that, I begin to understand your point. It is indeed weird, that tsc is OK with looking for typings outside of rootDir. But it works.

[ghost23]

Just in case the question comes up, I am using tsc 1.6.2

[blakeembrey]

Awesome, thanks. It seems if you're using definition files only outside of root, it's ok. Not sure if that's new, or I had some other issue, but it makes sense. How is tsc not crashing on the test file of yours though? If I put any .ts files outside of rootDir, I get the same error.

➜ tsc-rootdir-test tsc 
error TS6059: File 'test/test.ts' is not under 'rootDir' 'src'. 'rootDir' is expected to contain all source files.
➜ tsc-rootdir-test ls
dist foo.d.ts src test tsconfig.json