Use built-in FormData instead of form-data library

[michaelhays]

Hey there, I'm trying to upload a file with client.uploads.uploadFile(), and am seeing the error:

Cannot find module 'form-data'

The error happens when calling eval('require')('form-data') here.

This is the same issue that I ran into with #54, so it seems that the eval('require')('<library>') approach still breaks with my configuration for some reason, whether that's due to Vercel, ESM vs CJS, or something else. (Note that I tried installing form-data to my package.json, to no avail.)

It's probably wise to figure out what is going on at the root here, but I think a good immediate solution would be to drop the form-data library in favor of just using the FormData that has been built-in to Node.js since v18.

This would require dropping support for Node.js 16, but that has been end-of-life since September 2023, so this seems like a reasonable time to do so. Plus, Node.js 16 could still work with the --experimental-fetch flag.

There are some other good reasons to drop form-data laid out in this issue: form-data/form-data#537

What do you think?

[lukaszsocha2]

Hi @michaelhays,
thanks for reaching us. Let me talk about this one with the team and we'll get back to you.
Best,
@lukaszsocha2

[mhagmajer]

Thanks! We are going to plan doing this.

[mhagmajer]

Hi @michaelhays, we're already using FormData in browser environment

box-typescript-sdk-gen/src/networking/fetch.ts

Line 132 in d86a9b3

? window.FormData

. Please feel free to reopen the issue as needed. Thanks for reaching out!

[michaelhays]

Hi @mhagmajer, the problem on my end is actually the very next line:

box-typescript-sdk-gen/src/networking/fetch.ts

Line 133 in d86a9b3

: eval('require')('form-data');

The eval('require') approach doesn't work in a Vercel environment, as discussed in #54. That PR was fixed by simply removing the library, which wasn't necessary. In this case, you can do the same thing, since the form-data library is no longer needed as of Node.js 18, since FormData is now built in with Node.

Could you please re-open this issue? The only way I'm able to use this library right now is by patching it to remove the call to eval('require')('form-data').

[michaelhays]

You can keep this closed in favor of #213, since I finally figured out the root issue.