babel-plugin-transform-react-remove-prop-types

What is babel-plugin-transform-react-remove-prop-types?

The babel-plugin-transform-react-remove-prop-types package is a Babel plugin that removes unnecessary React propTypes from the production build. This can help reduce the file size of your bundle and improve performance by eliminating development-only checks.

What are babel-plugin-transform-react-remove-prop-types's main functionalities?

Remove PropTypes from React Components

This feature automatically strips out propTypes from your React components when building for production, which can lead to smaller bundle sizes and potentially faster application performance since the propTypes checks are not included.

import PropTypes from 'prop-types';

function MyComponent(props) {
  // ...
}

MyComponent.propTypes = {
  name: PropTypes.string
};

// After transformation with babel-plugin-transform-react-remove-prop-types
// The propTypes will be removed in production builds.

Option to remove PropTypes by wrapping them with a condition

This feature allows you to wrap your propTypes definitions in a condition that checks the environment. The plugin will remove the entire condition in production builds, effectively removing the propTypes.

if (process.env.NODE_ENV !== 'production') {
  MyComponent.propTypes = {
    name: PropTypes.string
  };
}

// After transformation with babel-plugin-transform-react-remove-prop-types
// The propTypes will be removed in production builds, as the condition will be false.

Option to remove or wrap PropTypes with a custom function

This feature provides the ability to define a custom function that will be used to remove or wrap propTypes. This can be useful if you have a custom build process or want to apply more complex logic to the removal of propTypes.

MyComponent.propTypes = removePropTypesInProduction({
  name: PropTypes.string
});

// After transformation with babel-plugin-transform-react-remove-prop-types
// The removePropTypesInProduction function will be replaced with an empty object or removed entirely in production builds.

Other packages similar to babel-plugin-transform-react-remove-prop-types

babel-plugin-transform-react-pure-class-to-function

This package transforms React class components that could be functions into functions. While it doesn't deal with propTypes directly, it is similar in the sense that it optimizes React components for production.

babel-plugin-transform-react-inline-elements

This Babel plugin transforms JSX elements to ReactElement objects directly, which can improve performance in some cases. It's similar in its goal of optimizing React applications for production.

README

babel-plugin-transform-react-remove-prop-types

Remove unnecessary React propTypes from the production build.

Installation

npm install --save-dev babel-plugin-transform-react-remove-prop-types

The problem solved

Remove React propTypes from the production build, as they are only used in development. You can save bandwidth by removing them.

Example

In

const Baz = (props) => (
  <div {...props} />
);

Baz.propTypes = {
  className: PropTypes.string
};

Out

const Baz = (props) => (
  <div {...props} />
);

With comment annotation

The majority of cases should be addressed by default by this plugin.

In some cases, for example when using HOCs (High Order Components), like react-redux's connect, or component inheritance (although it's NOT recommended), a comment after the propTypes definition may be used to force the removal:

Component.propTypes /* remove-proptypes */ = {}

Usage

Via .babelrc (Recommended)

.babelrc

without options:

{
  "env": {
    "production": {
      "plugins": ["transform-react-remove-prop-types"]
    }
  }
}

with options:

{
  "env": {
    "production": {
      "plugins": [
        ["transform-react-remove-prop-types", {
          "mode": "wrap",
          "ignoreFilenames": ["node_modules"]
        }]
      ]
    }
  }
}

Via CLI

babel --plugins transform-react-remove-prop-types script.js

Via Node API

without options:

require('babel-core').transform('code', {
  plugins: [
    'transform-react-remove-prop-types',
  ],
});

with options:

require('babel-core').transform('code', {
  plugins: [
    [
      'transform-react-remove-prop-types',
      {
        mode: 'wrap',
        ignoreFilenames: ['node_modules'],
      },
    ],
  ],
});

Options

mode

• remove (default): the propTypes definitions are removed from the source code.
• wrap: the propTypes definitions are wrapped with the following code:

Component.propTypes = process.env.NODE_ENV !== "production" ? {
  // ...
} : {};

Accessing Component.propTypes.className won't throw. It's a tradeoff between the size of the output file and the likelihood libraries like react-native-hyperlink breaks.

• unsafe-wrap: the propTypes definitions are wrapped with the following code:

if (process.env.NODE_ENV !== "production") {
  Component.propTypes = {
    // ...
  }
}

Accessing Component.propTypes.className will throw.

The wrap modes are targeting React libraries like material-ui or react-native-web. They are not intended to be used by application authors.

removeImport

• true: the import statements are removed as well. This option only works if mode is set to remove:

import PropTypes from 'prop-types'

• false (default): does not remove the import statements.

ignoreFilenames

This filter generates a regular expression. Any filenames containing one of the array's strings will be ignored. By default, we match everything.

Following the Is it safe? section, you might encounter a component depending on the propTypes at runtime to work. For this reason, we provide an array options to filter out some files and folders. For instance, you can ignore all the npm modules:

ignoreFilenames: ['node_modules'],

additionalLibraries

This option gives the possibility to remove other propTypes in addition to the canonical prop-types.

For instance, by default

import PropTypes from 'prop-types'
import ImmutablePropTypes from 'react-immutable-proptypes'

will result in the latter not to be removed, while with:

additionalLibraries: ['react-immutable-proptypes'],

both will be removed.

Regular expressions

If you are using Babel 7 or newer and your config is stored in babel.config.js, you can also use a regular expression to describe modules, which should be removed.

This would be particularly useful when using custom prop types validators, implemented as part of your own source code. For example

import CustomPropTypes from '../../prop-types/my-own-validator'
import OtherCustomPropTypes from '../../prop-types/my-other-validator'

would be removed with the following setting

additionalLibraries: [/\/prop-types\/.*$/]

If you use an index file

import CustomPropTypes from '../../prop-types'

you could set it up as

additionalLibraries: [/\/prop-types$/]

classNameMatchers

Use this option to enable this plugin to run on components that extend a class different than React.Component or React.PureComponent.

Given this example:

class MyComponent extends BaseComponent {
  ...
}

You would use:

classNameMatchers: ["BaseComponent"]

createReactClassName

Use this option to set a custom name for the import of the create-react-class package that is different than createReactClass.

Given this example:

import createClass from 'create-react-class';

You would use:

createReactClassName: 'createClass'

Is it safe?

If you are using the propTypes in a conventional way, i.e by using them to perform type checking on the properties, that plugin should be safe to use.

However, some libraries are accessing the propTypes on the component directly. For instance react-native-vector-icons use them to split the properties between two components:

const touchableProps = pick(restProps, Object.keys(TouchableHighlight.propTypes));

:warning: The plugin is breaking that code if it ends up removing TouchableHighlight.propTypes.

Make sure you are:

• Not using that pattern in your source code. If you do, explicitly export the propTypes to work around that limitation.
• Not parsing the node_modules. If you do, test that your code is still working before shipping into production.

eslint-plugin-react has a rule forbid-foreign-prop-types that can help you make this plugin safer to use.

License

MIT