dynamic-import

Note: Dynamic imports require Meteor 1.5 or higher.

The dynamic-import package provides an implementation of Module.prototype.dynamicImport, an extension of the module runtime which powers the dynamic import(...) statement, an up-and-coming (currently stage 3 out of 4) addition to the ECMAScript standard.

The dynamic import(...) statement is a complimentary method to the static import technique of requiring a module. While a statically import-ed module would be bundled into the initial JavaScript bundle, a dynamically import()-ed module is fetched from the server at runtime.

Once a module is fetched dynamically from the server, it is cached permanently on the client and additional requests for the same version of the module will not incur the round-trip request to the server. If the module is changed then a fresh copy will always be retrieved from the server.

Usage

The import(...) statement returns a Promise which is resolved with the exports of the module when it has been successfully fetched from the server and is ready to be used.

Because it’s a Promise, there are a couple methods developers can use to dictate what will happen upon the availability of the dynamically loaded module:

The .then() method of the Promise

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import("tool").then(tool => tool.task());

By await-ing in an asynchronous function

Meteor supports async and await, which provide a straightforward approach to asynchronously wait for the module to be ready without the need to provide a callback:

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async function performTask() {
  const tool = await import("tool");
  tool.task();
}

Default exports

The import(...) Promise is resolved with the exports of the module. If it’s necessary to use the “default” export from a module, it will be available on the default property of the resulting object. In the above examples, this means it will be available as tool.default. It can be helpful to use parameter de-structuring to provide additional clarity:

1	import("another-tool").then(({ default: thatTool }) => thatTool.go());