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| <!DOCTYPE HTML><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> | ||
| <head><meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> | ||
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| <title>Packaging SaxonJS for the browser</title> | ||
| <meta name="author" content="Norm Tovey-Walsh"> | ||
| <meta name="pubdate" content="2024-08-16T15:20:00"> | ||
| <link rel="shortcut icon" href="/img/scicon-032.png" type="image/png"> | ||
| <style>pre code { font-size: 90%; } | ||
| .aside { width: 50%; float: right; | ||
| padding-left: 1em; padding-right: 1em; margin-top: 0.25em; | ||
| margin-left: 1em; margin-bottom: 0.25em; | ||
| border: 1px solid #cccccc; border-radius: 0.5em; } | ||
| .aside em { font-weight: bold; font-style: normal; } | ||
| </style> | ||
| <link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/css/blog.css"><link rel="stylesheet" type="text/css" href="/css/norm-tovey-walsh.css"><meta content="Saxon Chronicles (in a Norman style)" property="og:site_name"><meta content="https://blog.saxonica.com/img/sccard.png" property="og:image"><meta content="Norm Tovey-Walsh's Saxonica weblog." property="og:description"><meta content="https://blog.saxonica.com/norm" property="og:url"><meta content="600" property="og:image:width"><meta content="315" property="og:image:height"><meta content="Packaging SaxonJS for the browser" property="og:title"><meta content="en_GB" property="og:locale"><meta content="website" property="og:type"><meta name="viewport" content="width=device-width, initial-scale=1.0"></head> | ||
| <body class="norm-tovey-walsh"><header><div class="banner"><h1><a href="/norm/">Saxon Chronicles</a></h1><div class="tagline">( in a Norman style )</div></div><h2>Packaging SaxonJS for the browser</h2><aside class="nav"><div class="navlinks"><div id="search"><form action="https://www.google.com/search" target="_parent"><span>Search: </span><input size="20" name="as_q"><input type="hidden" name="hl" value="en"><input type="hidden" name="ie" value="UTF-8"><input type="hidden" name="btnG" value="Google+Search"><input type="hidden" name="as_qdr" value="all"><input type="hidden" name="as_occt" value="any"><input type="hidden" name="as_dt" value="i"><input type="hidden" name="as_sitesearch" value="blog.saxonica.com"></form></div><div id="blogroll"><a href="/">Home (combined archives)</a><br><a href="/announcements/">Announcements</a><br><a href="/mike/">Saxon diaries</a><br><a href="/oneil/">O’Neil Delpratt’s Blog</a><br><a href="/norm/">Saxon Chronicles</a></div></div></aside><div class="byline"><span class="by">By </span><span class="name"><a href="/authors.html#norm-tovey-walsh">Norm Tovey-Walsh</a></span><span class="on"> on </span><a href="/authors.html#norm-tovey-walsh-D2024-08"><span class="date" time="2024-08-16T15:20:00">August 16, 2024 at 03:20p.m.</span></a></div></header><main> | ||
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| <p>Over the years, there have been several requests to improve the way that | ||
| SaxonJS is packaged for the browser. In the run up towards SaxonJS 3.0 (real | ||
| soon now, I promise), I’ve spent a few hours trying to see if that’s possible.</p> | ||
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| <p>For SaxonJS on Node.js, things seem to be working the way users expect. You | ||
| can install SaxonJS, and <em>xslt3.js</em>, the command-line XSLT processor, | ||
| with <code>npm install</code>. Then you can use them as you would other Node.js | ||
| modules and applications.</p> | ||
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| <p>For the browser, things are a little less clear.</p> | ||
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| <p>I’ll start out by observing that SaxonJS is a large(ish) collection of mostly | ||
| plain JavaScript files. There are a mixture of techniques used, as you might | ||
| expect from a code base that stretches back seven or eight years (roughly ∞ in | ||
| JavaScript years). This code is compiled by the <a href="https://developers.google.com/closure/compiler">Closure Compiler</a> to | ||
| produce the release artifacts.</p> | ||
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| <div class="aside"> | ||
| <p><em>Aside:</em> Producing TypeScript instead of JavaScript is almost certainly | ||
| impractical. And | ||
| the answer to the question, “can you make it an ESM module?” appears to be “no”. But | ||
| maybe I’m wrong?</p> | ||
| </div> | ||
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| <p>Almost anything is <em>possible</em> in software, | ||
| but there some things are probably <em>impractical</em> because of how SaxonJS | ||
| is built. | ||
| </p> | ||
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| <p>What I’ve come to realize after several hours is that I | ||
| don’t actually understand what problem I’m trying to solve. That usually makes | ||
| problems harder.</p> | ||
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| <p>For example, it would be easy to package the browser versions of the SaxonJS | ||
| libraries into the <code>saxon-js</code> <em>npm</em> package. That would allow | ||
| you to use <code>npm install</code> to install it. Once installed, you could | ||
| refer to it in HTML like this:</p> | ||
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| <pre><code><script src="node_modules/saxon-js/SaxonJS3.rt.js"></script></code></pre> | ||
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| <p>That’s a non-zero usability improvement over downloading the browser release | ||
| yourself and adding it to your project, but it’s an <em>awfully small</em> | ||
| improvement. So small, that I conjecture that the request to “put it in the npm | ||
| package” means more than that. But I don’t know what more.</p> | ||
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| <p>Another request that’s come up a couple of times is whether we should provide | ||
| a version that’s been packaged up with <em>webpack</em>. Well. Okay. I spent | ||
| a bit of time on that and eventually I managed to get</p> | ||
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| <pre><code>npx webpack --config webpack.config.js</code></pre> | ||
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| <p>to take <code>src/SaxonJS3.js</code>, chew on it for a while, and produce | ||
| <code>dist/SaxonJS3.js</code>. That was a little, uh, underwhelming. I started | ||
| with a JavaScript library that I could load in the browser and ended with…a | ||
| different one, I guess?</p> | ||
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| <p>Then there are suggestions that instead of <em>webpack</em> I should be | ||
| trying <em>vite</em> or <em>bun</em> or something else and do I also need | ||
| <em>browserify</em>? I don’t know. | ||
| I’m about to give up, at least in the short term, but before I do, I thought | ||
| I’d see if anyone out there can tell me what I’m missing.</p> | ||
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| <p>If you would like to see SaxonJS for the browser packaged up in some | ||
| different way, can you tell me how? And why? A small test case would be ideal: | ||
| something that isn’t too complicated, that doesn’t work with SaxonJS as it’s | ||
| distributed today, that would work if we packaged it in some other way.</p> | ||
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| </main><footer><div class="prev-uri"><a href="/mike/2024/08/maps-and-records.html">Maps and Records</a></div></footer></body> | ||
| </html> |
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| <!DOCTYPE HTML><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> | ||
| <head> | ||
| <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> | ||
| <meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="0; url=/norm/2024/08/16-packaging.html"> | ||
| <title>Redirect</title> | ||
| </head> | ||
| <body><a href="/norm/2024/08/16-packaging.html">Redirect</a>. | ||
| </body> | ||
| </html> |
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| Original file line number | Diff line number | Diff line change |
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| <!DOCTYPE HTML><html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> | ||
| <head> | ||
| <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"> | ||
| <meta http-equiv="Refresh" content="0; url=/norm/2024/08/16-packaging.html"> | ||
| <title>Redirect</title> | ||
| </head> | ||
| <body><a href="/norm/2024/08/16-packaging.html">Redirect</a>. | ||
| </body> | ||
| </html> |
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