How to point to compiled assets outside controllers/views

[afdev82]

Hi,

I am trying to include the compiled assets in my test environment (rspec inside a Ruby on Rails project).
To do that, I need the methods of the shakapacker view helper available in my helper (eg. asset_path), to be able to point to the compiled assets and load them with MiniRacer (this is why).
Currently I am getting the following error:

NoMethodError:
         undefined method `asset_path' for an instance of Configuration

Is there a way or a better way to achive this?
Thank you for your help!

[tomdracz]

You can try include the relevant helpers in your class. Shakapacker relies on some Rails helpers so you would need them also. Something like:

class MyTestClass
  include Shakapacker::Helper
  include ActionView::Helpers
  include ActionView::Helpers::AssetTagHelper
end

MyTestClass.new.asset_pack_path('my_pack_path.js')

You can see how we do something similar (though with extend as we want the module methods to be class rather than instance methods) in one of the specs https://github.com/shakacode/shakapacker/blob/main/spec/shakapacker/helper_spec.rb

[afdev82]

I have found the path of the compiled assets, but in my tests running the JS with MiniRacer, I am getting the following error:

Failure/Error: ctx.load(bundle_path)
     
     MiniRacer::RuntimeError:
       ReferenceError: self is not defined
     # JavaScript at <anonymous>:1:1

I don't know if it's an error of MiniRacer or I have to include something more to be able to use the bundle.
I have opened the file, and in fact it starts with "self...":

(self["webpackChunkad_notam"] = self["webpackChunkad_notam"] || []).push([["configurator_ssr"],{

Are there any examples of how to use a webpack bundle in rspec tests?
I have added now the line var self = globalThis first and then loaded the bundle, the error is gone... But I am not sure it's the right way to solve it, because I am getting other errors of not defined variables (eg. I18n), that are defined in the bundle.

[afdev82]

Yes, in my files I'm not using module exports, they are defining global objects to handle functions, etc... inside them (in fact there is a global object used as a namespace and inside of it all the logic / components needed.

I'll have a look at the references provided, thank you for your help!

[afdev82]

There is something I don't understand, the serverConfig is used if the ENV variable SERVER_BUNDLE_ONLY is set.
What I need is that if I load the bundle in mini_racer in this way:

bundle_path = Rails.root.join('public' + asset_pack_path('configurator_ssr.js'))
    ctx.load(bundle_path)

It gets compiled following the server specific webpack config.

I have changed the config for the test environment, because I use mini_racer also in the rspec tests and it was working.
But to choose the webpack config based on the RAILS_ENV it doesn't work in general, because the server side rendering is used also in the production environment.

Should I first precompile once the bundle used for the server side rendering and point to that file? In this case I could not use the asset_pack_tag at all, no hashes, chunks... In production it could work, in development I would need to use the shakapacker dev server to watch for changes and recompile the bundle.
Is it the way to go? I would need only to remember to precompile the server bundle every time I publish with a specific command (at the moment I use only the asset pipeline and all packs get compiled).

[tomdracz]

The linked is just an example. You don't have to add any conditionality. You could have single webpack config regardless of the environment and as long as it specifies two different configs, they would be applied.

[afdev82]

I think now I have got it.
I could have a webpack config only for the pack that I will use server side and another config that I use for all the other packs.

[afdev82]

It's working as expected.
Many thanks for your precious help! 🥇