Question on use of ~/ in paths

[wwahammy]

First off, thanks so much @ElMassimo for this library. I like that it helps without making all too many assumptions.

I had a question about the decision to use paths that start with ~/ in some of the templates. For example, in the [template_all.js.erb]:

js_from_routes/js_from_routes/lib/js_from_routes/template_all.js.erb

Line 4 in 86002a9

export { default as <%= helper.js_name %> } from '~/<%= helper.import_filename %>'

Why would one use that instead of using ./ there? That makes more sense to me immediately but I've never used ~/ so it's possible I'm overlooking something.

[ElMassimo]

Hi Eric!

The ~/ in the default template is referring to an import alias, commonly configured in Webpack and Vite projects to point to the source code root.

For example, Vite Ruby configures it by default, so this would work out of the box.

The main advantage of using an alias, is that absolute paths work everywhere. Relative paths could make the template invalid under some circumstances, for example, controllers with namespaces that result in files placed in nested directories.

You can use a custom template if you prefer using a relative path, or don't want to define an import alias (or if you are using a bundler that doesn't support aliases).