Modules

Syntax#

import defaultMember from ‘module’;
import { memberA, memberB, … } from ‘module’;
import * as module from ‘module’;
import { memberA as a, memberB, … } from ‘module’;
import defaultMember, * as module from ‘module’;
import defaultMember, { moduleA, … } from ‘module’;
import ‘module’;

Remarks#

From MDN (emphasis added):

This feature is not implemented in any browsers natively at this time. It is implemented in many transpilers, such as the Traceur Compiler, Babel or Rollup.

Many transpilers are able to convert ES6 module syntax into CommonJS for use in the Node ecosystem, or RequireJS or System.js for use in the browser.

It is also possible to use a module bundler like Browserify to combine a set of inter-dependent CommonJS modules into a single file which can be loaded in the browser.

Default exports

In addition to named imports, you can provide a default export.

// circle.js
export const PI = 3.14;
export default function area(radius) {
    return PI * radius * radius;
}

You can use a simplified syntax to import the default export.

import circleArea from './circle';
console.log(circleArea(4));

Note that a default export is implicitly equivalent to a named export with the name default, and the imported binding (circleArea above) is simply an alias. The previous module can be written like

import { default as circleArea } from './circle';
console.log(circleArea(4));

You can only have one default export per module. The name of the default export can be omitted.

// named export: must have a name
export const PI = 3.14;

// default export: name is not required
export default function (radius) {  
    return PI * radius * radius;
}

Importing with side effects

Sometimes you have a module that you only want to import so its top-level code gets run. This is useful for polyfills, other globals, or configuration that only runs once when your module is imported.

Given a file named test.js:

console.log('Initializing...')

You can use it like this:

import './test'

This example will print Initializing... to the console.

Defining a module

In ECMAScript 6, when using the module syntax (import/export), each file becomes its own module with a private namespace. Top-level functions and variables do not pollute the global namespace. To expose functions, classes, and variables for other modules to import, you can use the export keyword.

// not exported
function somethingPrivate() {
    console.log('TOP SECRET')
}


export const PI = 3.14;

export function doSomething() {
    console.log('Hello from a module!')
}

function doSomethingElse(){ 
    console.log("Something else")
}

export {doSomethingElse}

export class MyClass {
    test() {}
}

Note: ES5 JavaScript files loaded via <script> tags will remain the same when not using import/export.

Only the values which are explicitly exported will be available outside of the module. Everything else can be considered private or inaccessible.

Importing this module would yield (assuming the previous code block is in my-module.js):

import * as myModule from './my-module.js';

myModule.PI;                 // 3.14
myModule.doSomething();      // 'Hello from a module!'
myModule.doSomethingElse();  // 'Something else'
new myModule.MyClass();      // an instance of MyClass
myModule.somethingPrivate(); // This would fail since somethingPrivate was not exported

Importing named members from another module

Given that the module from the Defining a Module section exists in the file test.js, you can import from that module and use its exported members:

import {doSomething, MyClass, PI} from './test'

doSomething()

const mine = new MyClass()
mine.test()

console.log(PI)

The somethingPrivate() method was not exported from the test module, so attempting to import it will fail:

import {somethingPrivate} from './test'

somethingPrivate()

Importing an entire module

In addition to importing named members from a module or a module’s default export, you can also import all members into a namespace binding.

import * as test from './test'

test.doSomething()

All exported members are now available on the test variable. Non-exported members are not available, just as they are not available with named member imports.

Note: The path to the module './test' is resolved by the loader and is not covered by the ECMAScript specification - this could be a string to any resource (a path - relative or absolute - on a filesystem, a URL to a network resource, or any other string identifier).

Importing named members with aliases

Sometimes you may encounter members that have really long member names, such as thisIsWayTooLongOfAName(). In this case, you can import the member and give it a shorter name to use in your current module:

import {thisIsWayTooLongOfAName as shortName} from 'module'

shortName()

You can import multiple long member names like this:

import {thisIsWayTooLongOfAName as shortName, thisIsAnotherLongNameThatShouldNotBeUsed as otherName} from 'module'

shortName()
console.log(otherName)

And finally, you can mix import aliases with the normal member import:

import {thisIsWayTooLongOfAName as shortName, PI} from 'module'

shortName()
console.log(PI)

Exporting multiple named members

const namedMember1 = ...
const namedMember2 = ...
const namedMember3 = ...

export { namedMember1, namedMember2, namedMember3 }