AMD to ES6 module transpiler

What is it?

A simple tool for converting AMD modules into ES6 modules, either via the command line or programmatically.

Why?

AMD and RequireJS are great, but ES6 modules provide a nicer syntax for writing JS modules and there are so many great tools available now for converting ES6 to ES5 which also allow you to use ES6 syntax/features.

Installing

npm install amd-to-es6 -g

Usage

To convert a single file (compiled output sent to stdout):

amdtoes6 my-amd-module.js > my-awesome-es6-module.js

To convert a whole directory:

amdtoes6 --dir src/ --out es6/

If you want to modify the original files just set --out to the same as --dir.

amdtoes6 --dir src --out src

If you want some files to be ignored use the --ignore flag which accepts a glob pattern that is relative to --dir.

amdtoes6 --dir src --ignore libs/**/*.js

If you want the indentation to be "fixed" then use the --beautify option which just runs the output through jsbeautify.

If a file cannot be compiled an message will be printed explaining the error and it will be skipped.

Examples

Modules without dependencies.

AMD

define(function () {
    return {};
});

ES6

export default {};

---

Modules with dependencies.

AMD

define(['path/to/a', 'path/to/b'], function (a, b) {
    return function (x) {
        return a(b(x));
    };
});

ES6

import a from 'path/to/a';
import b from 'path/to/b';

export default function (x) {
    return a(b(x));
};

---

If you have AMD modules that look like this, where not all dependencies are assigned to parameters but accessed in the module using require, amdtoes6 will have to create some variable names. You wil probably want to change these.

AMD

define(['require', 'path/to/a', 'path/to/b'], function (require) {
    return function (x) {
        var a = require('a');
        var b = require('b');
        return a(b(x));
    };
});

ES6

import $__path_to_a from 'path/to/a';
import $__path_to_b from 'path/to/b';

export default function (x) {
    var a = $__path_to_a;
    var b = $__path_to_b;
    return a(b(x));
};

---

Imports for side-effects.

AMD

define(['path/to/a', 'path/to/b'], function () {
    return {};
});

ES6

import 'path/to/a';
import 'path/to/b';

export default {};

---

Without the --beautify option.

AMD

define(['path/to/a', 'path/to/b'], function (a, b) {
    return function (x) {
        return a(b(x));
    };
});

ES6

import a from 'path/to/a';
import b from 'path/to/b';

    export default function (x) {
        return a(b(x));
    };

Options

  Usage: amdtoes6 [options]

  Options:

    -h, --help          output usage information
    -d --dir <dirname>  Use this option to specify a directory to compile.
    -o --out <dirname>  If using the --dir option this specifies the output directory.
    -i --ignore <glob>  If using the --dir options this specifies to exclude eg. libs/**/*
    -g --glob [glob]    If using the --dir option, optionally specify the glob pattern to match for input files
    -b --beautify       Run the output through jsbeautify (mainly useful for fixing indentation)
    -I --indent [size]  Sets the indent size for jsbeautify (default: 4)

Not Supported

• Named define modules eg. define('my-module', function () {})
• Files with multiple module definitions
• UMD style modules where the callback passed to define is not a function literal eg. define(factoryFn)