The babel-cli package provides a command line interface for Babel, a JavaScript compiler that allows you to use next generation JavaScript, today. It can transform your JavaScript files using Babel plugins and presets, making it easier to write modern JavaScript code that works in older environments.
Transpile JavaScript files
This command transpiles all JavaScript files in the 'src' directory and outputs the transformed files into the 'lib' directory. It uses the Babel configuration specified in your project to determine how to transform the code.
babel src --out-dir libWatch files for changes
This command is similar to the previous one, but it also watches the 'src' directory for changes. Whenever a file is modified, Babel will automatically re-transpile the file and output the updated version to the 'lib' directory.
babel src --out-dir lib --watchSpecify presets and plugins
This command allows you to specify Babel presets and plugins directly in the command line. In this example, it uses the '@babel/preset-env' preset and the '@babel/plugin-transform-arrow-functions' plugin to transform the code.
babel src --out-dir lib --presets @babel/preset-env --plugins @babel/plugin-transform-arrow-functionsTypeScript is a language that builds on JavaScript by adding static type definitions. The TypeScript compiler (tsc) can be used to transpile TypeScript code into JavaScript. Unlike Babel, TypeScript focuses on type safety and catching errors at compile time.
esbuild is an extremely fast JavaScript bundler and minifier. It can also transpile modern JavaScript syntax to older versions. Compared to Babel, esbuild is much faster but may not support as many transformations and plugins.
swc (Speedy Web Compiler) is a super-fast JavaScript/TypeScript compiler written in Rust. It aims to be a drop-in replacement for Babel with a focus on speed. While it supports many of the same transformations as Babel, it may not have as extensive a plugin ecosystem.
Babel command line.
In addition, various entry point scripts live in the top-level package at babel-cli/bin.
There are some shell-executable utility scripts, babel-external-helpers.js and babel-node.js, and the main Babel cli script, babel.js.
npm install --save-dev babel-cli
babel script.js
For more in depth documentation see: http://babeljs.io/docs/usage/cli/
FAQs
Babel command line.
The npm package babel-cli receives a total of 202,456 weekly downloads. As such, babel-cli popularity was classified as popular.
We found that babel-cli demonstrated a not healthy version release cadence and project activity because the last version was released a year ago. It has 5 open source maintainers collaborating on the project.
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