babel-generator

What is babel-generator?

The babel-generator package is part of the Babel toolchain, which is used for converting ECMAScript 2015+ code into a backwards compatible version of JavaScript that can be run by older JavaScript engines. Babel-generator specifically is responsible for generating code from Babel's AST (Abstract Syntax Tree).

What are babel-generator's main functionalities?

Code Generation

This feature allows you to generate code from a Babel AST. In the example, the code is first transformed to an AST using Babel's transform function, and then the AST is passed to babel-generator to produce the final code output.

const generate = require('babel-generator').default;
const babel = require('@babel/core');

babel.transform('code', options, function(err, result) {
  const output = generate(result.ast);
  console.log(output.code);
});

Other packages similar to babel-generator

escodegen

Escodegen is another JavaScript code generator that takes an Abstract Syntax Tree (AST) and turns it into code. It is similar to babel-generator but does not require the use of Babel and its plugins to generate the AST. It can be used independently with other AST-producing parsers like Esprima.

recast

Recast provides both parsing and printing functionality, allowing you to read JavaScript code, manipulate it, and write it back out. While babel-generator focuses solely on code generation, Recast offers a more integrated approach to manipulating and regenerating code.

README

babel-generator

Turns an AST into code.

Install

$ npm install babel-generator

Usage

import {parse} from 'babylon';
import generate from 'babel-generator';

const code = 'class Example {}';
const ast = parse(code);

const output = generate(ast, { /* options */ }, code);