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Use ES6 "import" instruction without transpilers

I have nodejs v8

$ node -v
v8.1.3

and script:

import cmd from "commander";

When trying to run this script:

an "Unexpected token import" error occurs. 
$ node script.js
/.../script.js:1
(function (exports, require, module, __filename, __dirname) { import cmd from "commander";
                                                              ^^^^^^

    SyntaxError: Unexpected token import

Is there any method for using ES6 modules ("import" statement) without a transpiler?

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2 answers


Without using a transpiler, you must use require

:



const cmd = require('commander');
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The accepted answer is no longer the correct answer. In NodeJS 4+, you can now enable ES modules by installing the package @std/esm

and calling the script with a parameter -r @std/esm

on the command line. For example:

node -r @std/esm index.js

Note that in order for Node to automatically detect if a file should use ESM (so you can use extensions .js

instead of using Michael Jackson's solution .mjs

), you have to add in the package.json

following:



"@std/esm": { "esm": "js" },

See standard-things / esm on GitHub for details .

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