Different behavior between ES6 and ES2016 using babel on cluster.on

Question

I am trying to use cluster to exploit the benefit of having multi-core CPUs. With code:

var cluster = require('cluster');

if (cluster.isMaster) {
    for(var i = 0; i < 2; ++i) {
        cluster.fork();
    }
    cluster.on('exit', function (worker) {
        console.log('Worker ' + worker.process.pid + ' exitted.');
    });
} else {
    console.log('Worker ' + cluster.worker.process.pid);
    process.exit(0);
}

node worked perfectly with output

Worker 14058
Worker 14064
Worker 14058 exitted.
Worker 14064 exitted.

However, when I tried to use import together with babel, I got problems:

import *  as cluster from 'cluster'

if (cluster.isMaster) {
    for(let i = 0; i < 2; ++i) {
        cluster.fork();
    }
    cluster.on('exit', (worker) => console.log('Worker ' + worker.process.pid + ' exitted.'));
} else {
    console.log('Worker ' + cluster.worker.process.pid);
    process.exit(0);
}

the output (after babel) of node is:

2.js:13
    cluster.on('exit', function (worker) {
            ^

TypeError: cluster.on is not a function
    at Object.<anonymous> (2.js:13:13)
    at Module._compile (module.js:556:32)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (module.js:565:10)
    at Module.load (module.js:473:32)
    at tryModuleLoad (module.js:432:12)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:424:3)
    at Module.runMain (module.js:590:10)
    at run (bootstrap_node.js:394:7)
    at startup (bootstrap_node.js:149:9)
    at bootstrap_node.js:509:3
Worker 14140
Worker 14146

This looks weird. I am using node v6.4.0, with babel 6.11.4 (babel-core 6.13.2), the content of .babelrc is:

{
  "presets": ["es2016", "es2015"]
}

Any ideas what happened?

Answer 1

Ok, I figured out the reason, ref: Difference between import X and import * as X in node.js (ES6 / Babel)?

The point is change import * as cluster from 'cluster' to import cluster from 'cluster'.

With import * as cluster from 'cluster', everything that is exportable is exported into an object with name cluster, and it has structure:

{ domain: null,
  _events: {},
  _eventsCount: 0,
  _maxListeners: undefined,
  Worker: 
   { [Function: Worker]
     super_: 
      { [Function: EventEmitter]
        EventEmitter: [Circular],
        usingDomains: false,
        defaultMaxListeners: 10,
        init: [Function],
        listenerCount: [Function] } },
  isWorker: false,
  isMaster: true,
  workers: {},
  settings: {},
  schedulingPolicy: 2,
  SCHED_NONE: 1,
  SCHED_RR: 2,
  setupMaster: [Function],
  fork: [Function],
  disconnect: [Function],
  default: 
   EventEmitter {
     domain: null,
     _events: {},
     _eventsCount: 0,
     _maxListeners: undefined,
     Worker: { [Function: Worker] super_: [Object] },
     isWorker: false,
     isMaster: true,
     workers: {},
     settings: {},
     schedulingPolicy: 2,
     SCHED_NONE: 1,
     SCHED_RR: 2,
     setupMaster: [Function],
     fork: [Function],
     disconnect: [Function] } }

On the other hand, when import cluster from 'cluster', the cluster object is the default export:

EventEmitter {
  domain: null,
  _events: {},
  _eventsCount: 0,
  _maxListeners: undefined,
  Worker: 
   { [Function: Worker]
     super_: 
      { [Function: EventEmitter]
        EventEmitter: [Circular],
        usingDomains: false,
        defaultMaxListeners: 10,
        init: [Function],
        listenerCount: [Function] } },
  isWorker: false,
  isMaster: true,
  workers: {},
  settings: {},
  schedulingPolicy: 2,
  SCHED_NONE: 1,
  SCHED_RR: 2,
  setupMaster: [Function],
  fork: [Function],
  disconnect: [Function] }