Module parsing failed while using webpack 4 for a react project

Question

I am having trouble configuring my react project with Webpack 4.

I am printing my file contents here:

package.json (script part):

    {
  "name": "todo",
  "version": "1.0.0",
  "description": "a ToDo app built using react and webpack",
  "main": "index.js",
  "scripts": {
    "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1",
    "dev": "webpack --mode development ./src/index.js --output ./dist/main.js",
    "build": "webpack --mode production ./src/index.js --output ./dist/main.js"
  },
  "author": "themaskedbit",
  "license": "ISC",
  "devDependencies": {
    "babel-core": "^6.26.3",
    "babel-loader": "^8.0.4",
    "babel-preset-env": "^1.7.0",
    "babel-preset-react": "^6.24.1",
    "babel-preset-stage-0": "^6.24.1",
    "webpack": "^4.26.1",
    "webpack-cli": "^3.1.2"
  },
  "dependencies": {
    "react": "^16.6.3",
    "react-dom": "^16.6.3"
  }
}

babelrc:

{
    "presets": [
        "@babel/preset-env", "@babel/preset-react"
    ]
}

webpack.config.js :

module.exports = {
    module: {
      rules: [
        {
          test: /\.js$/,
          exclude: /node_modules/,
          use: {
            loader: "babel-loader"
          }
        }
      ]
    }
  };

index.js :

import data from "./data/items";

import React from 'react';
import {render} from 'react-dom';

import ListItem from "./components/listItem";

render(
    <ListItem items={data}/>,
    document.getElementById("app")
);

With the above configuration, while I am trying to run the webpack using dev script. I am getting the below error:

$ npm run dev

> todo@1.0.0 dev C:\Users\rejir\Documents\HP works\ToDo
> webpack --mode development ./src/index.js --output ./dist/main.js

Hash: 0fac7774f9aa4bb8aeed
Version: webpack 4.26.1
Time: 234ms
Built at: 2018-11-28 19:50:35
  Asset      Size  Chunks             Chunk Names
main.js  4.01 KiB    main  [emitted]  main
Entrypoint main = main.js
[./src/index.js] 227 bytes {main} [built] [failed] [1 error]

ERROR in ./src/index.js 9:4
Module parse failed: Unexpected token (9:4)
You may need an appropriate loader to handle this file type.
|
| render(
>     <ListItem items={data}/>,
|     document.getElementById("app")
| );
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
npm ERR! errno 2
npm ERR! todo@1.0.0 dev: `webpack --mode development ./src/index.js --output ./dist/main.js`
npm ERR! Exit status 2
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Failed at the todo@1.0.0 dev script.
npm ERR! This is probably not a problem with npm. There is likely additional logging output above.

npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
npm ERR!     C:\Users\rejir\AppData\Roaming\npm-cache\_logs\2018-11-28T14_20_35_305Z-debug.log

Please help me with the webpack configuration. My understanding is that I am including the babel-loader in a wrong way. Searching through stackoverflow answers didn't give me a clue to solve my problem. If any fellow developers can help me in solving this issue, it will be good for me.

Thanks in advance.

Answer 1

You need to pass the config file while running webpack command

"dev": "webpack --mode development ./src/index.js --output ./dist/main.js --config webpack.config.js",
"build": "webpack --mode production ./src/index.js --output ./dist/main.js --config webpack.config.js"

More info here - use-custom-configuration-file