What does the @ mean inside an import path?

Question

I'm starting out a new vue.js project so I used the vue-cli tool to scaffold out a new webpack project (i.e. vue init webpack).

As I was walking through the generated files I noticed the following imports in the src/router/index.js file:

import Vue from 'vue'
import Router from 'vue-router'
import Hello from '@/components/Hello' // <- this one is what my qusestion is about

Vue.use(Router)

export default new Router({
    routes: [
        {
            path: '/',
            name: 'Hello',
            component: Hello
        }
    ]
})

I've not seen the at sign (@) in a path before. I suspect it allows for relative paths (maybe?) but I wanted to be sure I understand what it truly does.

I tried searching around online but wasn't able to find an explanation (prob because searching for "at sign" or using the literal character @ doesn't help as search criteria).

What does the @ do in this path (link to documentation would be fantastic) and is this an es6 thing? A webpack thing? A vue-loader thing?

UPDATE

Thanks Felix Kling for pointing me to another duplicate stackoverflow question/answer about this same question.

While the comment on the other stackoverflow post isn't the exact answer to this question (it wasn't a babel plugin in my case) it did point me in the correct direction to find what it was.

In in the scaffolding that vue-cli cranks out for you, part of the base webpack config sets up an alias for .vue files:

This makes sense both in the fact that it gives you a relative path from the src file and it removes the requirement of the .vue at the end of the import path (which you normally need).

Thanks for the help!

Answer 1

This is done with Webpack resolve.alias configuration option and isn't specific to Vue.

In Vue Webpack template, Webpack is configured to replace @/ with src path:

  const path = require('path');

  ...
  resolve: {
    extensions: ['.js', '.vue', '.json'],
    alias: {
      ...
      '@': path.resolve('src'),
    }
  },
  ...

The alias is used as:

import '@/<path inside src folder>';

Answer 2

Also keep in mind you can create variables in tsconfig as well:

"paths": {
  "@components": ["src/components"],
  "@scss": ["src/styles/scss"],
  "@img": ["src/assests/images"],
  "@": ["src"],
}

This can be utilized for naming convention purposes:

import { componentHeader } from '@components/header';

Answer 3

I get over with following combination

import HelloWorld from '@/components/HelloWorld'
=>
import HelloWorld from 'src/components/HelloWorld'

IDE will stop warning the uri, but this causes invalid uri when compile, in "build\webpack.base.conf.js"

resolve: {
  extensions: ['.js', '.vue', '.json'],
  alias: {
    'src': resolve('src'),
  }
},

Bingoo!

Answer 4

Maybe try adding in webpack. mix.webpackConfig references laravel mix.

mix.webpackConfig({

    resolve: {
        alias: {
            '@imgSrc': path.resolve('resources/assets/img')
        }
    }
});

And then in vue use.

<img src="@imgSrc/logo.png" />

Answer 5

resolve('src') no works for me but path.resolve('src') works

resolve: {
    alias: {
      'vue$': 'vue/dist/vue.esm.js',
      '@': path.resolve('src')
    },
    extensions: ['*', '.js', '.vue', '.json']
  },

Answer 6

Something must have changed. The answer given here is no longer correct. This project in Chapter09 uses the @ sign in its import statements but the webpack.config.js file doesn't have a path resolve statement:

let service = process.VUE_CLI_SERVICE

if (!service || process.env.VUE_CLI_API_MODE) {
  const Service = require('./lib/Service')
  service = new Service(process.env.VUE_CLI_CONTEXT || process.cwd())
  service.init(process.env.VUE_CLI_MODE || process.env.NODE_ENV)
}

module.exports = service.resolveWebpackConfig()

Answer 7

A similar approach used in Vue3 and Vite, the alias can be found in vite.config.js

// https://vitejs.dev/config/
export default defineConfig({
  plugins: [vue(),vueJsx()],
  resolve: {
    alias: {
      "@": fileURLToPath(new URL("./src", import.meta.url)),
    },
  },
});

Answer 8

An example to apply in Next.js would be to use the file next.config.js to add the next content.

const path = require('path');

module.exports = {
  webpack: (config, options) => {
    config.resolve.alias = {
      '@': path.resolve(process.cwd(), 'src'),
    };
    return config;
  }
};

Answer 9

It refers to an alias path found in your config.js file

Answer 10

@ refers to the src folder inside your root directory, it can be configured while bootstrapping your app.

Answer 11

We sometimes use '@' to import from a components directory with a path "src/components/Add.vue". If we need to access this file from a diff directory like "src/views/AboutView.vue", we can use this to import Add.vue inside AboutView.vue as import Add from "@/components/Add.vue", inside your tag. This is the same as using import Add from "../components/Add.vue" '@' points to the root directory of your app(src folder)

Answer 12

In simple words, the "@" symbol is used as "src" when importing files/components.

I have configured my webpack.common.js file like below

resolve: {
  extensions: [".ts", ".js", ".vue"],
  alias: {
      '@': path.resolve(__dirname,'src/')
  }
}

I have imported the vuex store like this import store from "@/store"; instead of import store from "../store"

You can read more about Webpack Aliases in Vue here

Answer 13

import { createApp, markRaw } from "vue";

import { createPinia } from "pinia";

import App from "./App.vue";

import router from "./router";

// import "./assets/main.css";

const app = createApp(App);

const pinia = createPinia()

pinia.use(({ store })=>{ store.$router = markRaw(router) })

app.use(pinia);

app.use(router);

app.mount("#app");