I get the general gist that the CommonsChunkPlugin
looks at all the entry points, checks to see if there are common packages/dependencies between them and separates them into their own bundle.
So, let's assume I have the following configuration:
...
enrty : {
entry1 : 'entry1.js', //which has 'jquery' as a dependency
entry2 : 'entry2.js', //which has 'jquery as a dependency
vendors : [
'jquery',
'some_jquery_plugin' //which has 'jquery' as a dependency
]
},
output: {
path: PATHS.build,
filename: '[name].bundle.js'
}
...
If I bundle without using CommonsChunkPlugin
I will end up with 3 new bundle files:
-
entry1.bundle.js
which contains the complete code from entry1.js
and jquery
and contains its own runtime
-
entry2.bundle.js
which contains the complete code from entry2.js
and jquery
and contains its own runtime
-
vendors.bundle.js
which contains the complete code from jquery
and some_jquery_plugin
and contains its own runtime
This is obviously bad because I will potentially load jquery
3 times in the page, so we don't want that.
If I bundle using CommonsChunkPlugin
Depending on what arguments I pass to CommonsChunkPlugin
any of the following will happen:
-
CASE 1 : If I pass { name : 'commons' }
I will end up with the following bundle files:
-
entry1.bundle.js
which contains the complete code from entry1.js
, a requirement for jquery
and does not contain the runtime
-
entry2.bundle.js
which contains the complete code from entry2.js
, a requirement for jquery
and does not contain the runtime
-
vendors.bundle.js
which contains the complete code from some_jquery_plugin
, a requirement for jquery
and does not contain the runtime
-
commons.bundle.js
which contains the complete code from jquery
and contains the runtime
This way we end up with some smaller bundles overall and the runtime is contained in the commons
bundle. Pretty ok but not ideal.
-
CASE 2 : If I pass { name : 'vendors' }
I will end up with the following bundle files:
-
entry1.bundle.js
which contains the complete code from entry1.js
, a requirement for jquery
and does not contain the runtime
-
entry2.bundle.js
which contains the complete code from entry2.js
, a requirement for jquery
and does not contain the runtime
-
vendors.bundle.js
which contains the complete code from jquery
and some_jquery_plugin
and contains the runtime.
This way, again, we end up with some smaller bundles overall but the runtime is now contained in the vendors
bundle. It's a little worse than the previous case, since the runtime is now in the vendors
bundle.
-
CASE 3 : If I pass { names : ['vendors', 'manifest'] }
I will end up with the following bundle files:
-
entry1.bundle.js
which contains the complete code from entry1.js
, a requirement for jquery
and does not contain the runtime
-
entry2.bundle.js
which contains the complete code from entry2.js
, a requirement for jquery
and does not contain the runtime
-
vendors.bundle.js
which contains the complete code from jquery
and some_jquery_plugin
and does not contain the runtime
-
manifest.bundle.js
which contains requirements for every other bundle and contains the runtime
This way we end up with some smaller bundles overall and the runtime is contained in the manifest
bundle. This is the ideal case.
What I do not understand/I am not sure I understand
In CASE 2 why did we end up with the vendors
bundle containing both the common code (jquery
) and whatever remained from the vendors
entry (some_jquery_plugin
)? From my understanding, what the CommonsChunkPlugin
did here was that it gathered the common code (jquery
), and since we forced it to output it to the vendors
bundle, it kind of "merged" the common code into the vendors
bundle (which now only contained the code from some_jquery_plugin
). Please confirm or explain.
In CASE 3 I do not understand what happened when we passed { names : ['vendors', 'manifest'] }
to the plugin. Why/how was the vendors
bundle kept intact, containing both jquery
and some_jquery_plugin
, when jquery
is clearly a common dependency, and why was the generated manifest.bundle.js
file created the way it was created (requiring all other bundles and containing the runtime) ?