ava: SyntaxError: Unexpected token import

Question

So ava comes with build-in ES2015 support, which works fine for my actual test files. However, when I do

import {newUser, createUser, login} from './helpers/user';

I can't use import and export in the helper file, I then get:

Users/rowe/Code/fv/foxvision-api/test/api/helpers/user.js:1
(function (exports, require, module, __filename, __dirname) { import request from 'supertest';

SyntaxError: Unexpected token import

I have no specific babel configuration set up as for the test files it works out of the box. Can anyone explain to me why the helper dependencies are not transpiled with babel? Using test/**/helpers is even following ava convention.

Thanks, Robin

Solution

So based on thangngoc89's solution, what I did to make it work was:

Add a .babelrc with content:

{
  "presets": [
    "es2015",
    "stage-2"
  ],
  "plugins": [
    "espower",
    "transform-runtime"
  ]
}

Added to package.json:

"ava": {
  "require": ["babel-register"],
  "babel": "inherit"
}

the `"require": ["babel-register"],` in package.json is necessary even though http://babeljs.io/docs/setup/#installation doesn't mention it. — Harry Moreno, Oct 04 '16 at 22:58

score 19 · Accepted Answer · edited Sep 23 '19 at 16:53

19

AVA only transpile the test files. Not test dependencies so you will need to setup babel in your project (I suppose you did it because you're using ES6 anyway).

Then in AVA's setting, add this :

"ava": {
  ...
  "babel": "inherit"
}

It means that use your project babel setting to transpile the test dependencies. See more information in AVA docs: https://github.com/sindresorhus/ava/blob/master/docs/recipes/babelrc.md

edited Sep 23 '19 at 16:53

Lane

6,532
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answered Apr 19 '16 at 16:31

thangngoc89

1,400
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14

Is this still relevant for AVA 1.x? – mesqueeb Mar 25 '19 at 00:25

score 2 · Answer 2 · edited May 23 '17 at 10:31

2

Using rweng, my solution came out a bit simpler.

.babelrc

{
  "presets": [
    "es2015"
  ],
  "plugins": [
    "transform-runtime"
  ]
}

package.json:

"ava": {
  "require": ["babel-register"],
  "babel": "inherit"
}

edited May 23 '17 at 10:31

Community

1
1

answered Apr 13 '17 at 01:27

Jason Kim

18,102
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Sergiy Seletskyy · Answer 3 · 2017-07-12T09:23:26.793

Unfortunately standard solution didn't work for my case. Here is my solution which worked for ava + quasar + vue project

.babelrc

{
  "presets": [
    "es2017",
    "@ava/stage-4",
    "stage-3"
  ],
  "plugins": [
    "transform-runtime"
  ]
}

package.json

"ava": {
  "require": [
    "babel-register"
  ],
  "babel": "inherit"
},
"scripts": {
  "ava": "NODE_ENV=test ava",
  "test": "ava",
  "test:watch": "ava --watch --verbose"
}

install modules

yarn add babel-register babel-preset-es2017 @ava/babel-preset-stage-4 babel-plugin-transform-runtime babel-preset-stage-3 --dev

ava: SyntaxError: Unexpected token import

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