Add "Did you mean '--entry index.js'?"

[fregante]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

The simplest usage stopped working in v4 and the error is meaningless

❯ webpack --version
webpack 5.14.0
webpack-cli 4.3.1

❯ webpack index.js
[webpack-cli] Unknown command 'index.js'
[webpack-cli] Run 'webpack --help' to see available commands and options

Describe the solution you'd like

Tell me how to fix it rather than having to Google my way out of cryptic error messages.

  ❯ webpack index.js
  [webpack-cli] Unknown command 'index.js'
+ [webpack-cli] Did you mean '--entry index.js'?
  [webpack-cli] Run 'webpack --help' to see available commands and options

Additional context

People having issues:

• webpack ./src/main.js -o ./dist/bundle.js 报错 #2322
• https://stackoverflow.com/q/65606265/288906

[snitin315]

As I mentioned in #2322 (comment) , It was difficult to differentiate between an invalid command and an entry point.
Earlier the logic was very hacky.

[snitin315]

But I think we can do something like follow -

for
webpack index.js

if (isFileExists('invalid')) { 
 logger.error('Did you mean '--entry index.js'?')
} else { 
  // current behaviour
}

[alexander-akait]

hm, maybe we can do, I will think about it

[alexander-akait]

I am WIP on old syntax (will be in the next patch release) -

• webpack ./entry.js
• webpack entry=./entry.js

[alexander-akait]

We return: webpack ./entry.js, webpack entry=./entry.js will be in future, need some improvements

[saivan]

I had code that depended on webpack entry=./entry.js, is there an alternative way to achieve this now (without having to write a webpack config file)?

[anshumanv]

Tried it and it seems to work for me, does it not work for you?

[saivan]

Sorry to be clear, i'd want to set a different name like: webpack hello=./hello.js second=./second.js. I have no way to set the name of the package by the looks of things

[saivan]

Another strange thing, is that providing multiple entry points always sets the name field to main (I don't think I set that anywhere). Is that expected behaviour?

[alexander-akait]

webpack hello=./hello.js second=./second.js is not supported, you need configuration for it, or we should improve it on webpack side

[saivan]

Well in the meantime, if anybody runs into this issue, you can try something along the lines of:

class CompilerHooks {
  apply(compiler) {
    // Rewrite the "main" entry point 
    compiler.hooks.entryOption.tap('Entry Rewrite', (context, entry) => {
      // Delete the main entry point and get the entry files
      const entryFiles = entry.main.import
      delete entry.main

      // Add new entry points for each file
      for ( let fileName of entryFiles ) {
        const name = path.parse(fileName).name
        entry[name] = { import: [fileName] }      }
    })
  } 
}

Then in your config:

config = {
   plugins: [new CompilerHooks()]
   ...
}

You can even add in some environment variables if you want to make this more elaborate 😄

[alexander-akait]

If you need webpack --name=./foo.js --other=./bar.js we can implement this, but we need improve it on webpack side