We've gone over the format for CommonJS/Node.js modules, the format for ES6 modules, and the algorithm for locating and importing both. The last thing to cover is those hybrid situations where our code will use both module formats at the same time.
As a practical matter, ES6 modules are very new to the Node.js platform, and therefore we have a large body of existing code written as CommonJS/Node.js modules. Many tools in the Node.js market have implementation dependencies on the CommonJS format. This means we'll be facing situations where ES6 modules will need to use CommonJS modules, and vice versa:
- CommonJS module loads other CommonJS modules with
require()
- CommonJS module cannot load ES6 modules—except for two methods:
- Dynamic import, also known as
import(), can load an ES6 module as an asynchronous operation - The
@std/esmpackage supplies arequire()function with one that can load ES6 modules as an asynchronous operation
- Dynamic import, also known as
- ES6 modules load other...