Added WRITE_TO_DISK environment variable. Fixes #1070

[ioloie]

This PR will allow us to pass the writeToDisk option to webpack-dev-middleware using a new environment variable WRITE_TO_DISK.

The new option addresses #1070 and use cases such as creating browser extensions.

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[Nargonath]

Perhaps it would be nice to allow a destination override instead of the default dist folder by adding another new environment variable. What do you think?

[rodcorsi]

@Nargonath@ioloie my 2 cents, as you can see on the documentation of webpack-dev-server, writeToDisk accept a boolean or a function returning the path, you could make WRITE_TO_DISK to have the same behavior.

WRITE_TO_DISK=true -> use default folder (dist)
WRITE_TO_DISK=<custom path> -> use the path specified

[ioloie]

This PR has a shortcoming which is that the public folder isn't written to disk with each update.

Static files are loaded by the middleware upon receiving a HTTP request for the file. This means that this won't fix #1070 in it's entirety by itself. But it does put us in a much more manageable position since it's straightforward to use something like npm-run-all with cpx to look after the static files:

"scripts": {"watch:react": "react-scripts start","watch:static": "cpx \"public/**/*.*\" dist --watch","build": "react-scripts build","start": "npm-run-all -p watch:* ","test": "react-scripts test","eject": "react-scripts eject"}

[Nargonath]

@ioloie I agree that is not the best solution yet but it still is better than the current state where you have to rely on external tools: https://github.com/Nargonath/cra-build-watch

[ioloie]

The writeToDisk function doesn't return a filePath. It accepts one as it's only argument.
It's purpose is to filter which files should be written to disk at all, returning either true or false.

To support custom output paths would mean making Webpack's output.path configurable which is a separatedebate.

[Nargonath]

@ioloie Fair enough, LTGM. In the end I feel CRA should do the same that vue-cli did to allow customization of the different configs.

[stale]

This pull request has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had any recent activity. It will be closed in 5 days if no further activity occurs.

[Nargonath]

Well we are just waiting for someone to merge it IIRC. 😃

[stale]

This pull request has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had any recent activity. It will be closed in 5 days if no further activity occurs.

[Nargonath]

The interest in the PR is still here, we just need it to be merged or someone to articulate his feedbacks if not suitable for merge already so we can move forward with it.

[ifokeev]

need this also

[animesh1987]

Also in need for this. Thanks.

[stale]

This pull request has been automatically marked as stale because it has not had any recent activity. It will be closed in 5 days if no further activity occurs.

[Nargonath]

Sorry stale bot but no. 😛

[skurfuerst]

Hey,

any news to this PR? Would be awesome to have this merged!

All the best,
Sebastian

[ryanwarsaw]

It would be great to have this merged, would make chrome extension development much easier.

[Janaka-Steph]

Pleaaase, merge this PR!

[RehanSaeed]

This would be really nice for building Chrome/Edge extensions.

[eddiemonge]

doesn't this still suffer from the contents of /public not being written?

[EricRabil]

Just wanna say this seems to be working fine for me. I've got an npm package @erics-forks/react-scripts that is react-scripts@4.0.2 with this PR merged. I'll do my best to keep it updated until this merges.