Browserify cannot find npm module

Question

I'm trying to create an NPM module with great pain: react-smallgrid

import React from 'react';
import _ from 'lodash';


export default class SmallGrid extends React.Component{

Compiled with:

browserify: {
    options: {
        transform: [
            ['babelify', {
                presets: ['react', 'es2015']
            }]
        ]
    },

    jsx: {
        files: {
            './dist/js/smallgrid.js': [
                './src/smallgrid.jsx',
            ]
        }
    },

When I import the js file in another project/jsx and try to browserify that, it gives the error:

Error: Cannot find module './ReactMount' from '/Users/me/code/react-smallgrid/dist/js'

I thought it's already compiled for use? I don't understand this.

Meanwhile

I've tried building it with webpack, which gives the following output:

> webpack -p

Hash: 00fd87c95d39230bd485
Version: webpack 1.12.11
Time: 14002ms
       Asset    Size  Chunks             Chunk Names
smallgrid.js  248 kB       0  [emitted]  smallgrid
    + 160 hidden modules

WARNING in smallgrid.js from UglifyJs
Condition always true [./~/react/lib/ReactMount.js:764,0]
Condition always true [./~/react/lib/findDOMNode.js:46,0]
Condition always true [./~/react/lib/instantiateReactComponent.js:80,0]

Still does not work.

Answer 1

You need to make React libs available to your code.

Run this to add browserify-shim:

npm i browserify-shim -D

Add this to your package.json:

"browserify": {
  "transform": [
    "browserify-shim"
  ]
},
"browser": {
  "react": "./node_modules/react/dist/react.js",
  "react-dom": "./node_modules/react-dom/dist/react-dom.js",
  "lodash": "./node_modules/lodash"
},
"browserify-shim": {
  "./node_modules/react/dist/react.js": "React",
  "./node_modules/react-dom/dist/react-dom.js": "ReactDOM",
  "./node_modules/lodash": "lodash"
}

---

By the way, you can also use browserify externals in your config to further reduce the resulting package. It's best to not include for example: React in your bundle.

---

Note:

I also sent you a PR in Github for the solution.