Inconsistent Module Resolution (context require vs. ES6 import)

[suguanYang]

Bug report

What is the current behavior?
webpack treats relative context required files as modules when it match the module configuration , which is inconsistent with import statement

// file structure
// ./src/mods
//      ./1.js
//      ./2.js
// index.js

// configuration
resolve.modules: ['node_modules', path.resolve(__dirname, 'src')],

// index.js
const req = require.context('./mods', true, /\.js$/); // both 1.js and 2.js are modules
import mod1Relative from './mods/1.js'; // not a module
import mod1Alias from 'mods/2.js'; // module

how I declar the 'module':
use rawModule hook

resolver.getHook('before-rawModule').tapAsync('runtime-external-resolve', (req, ctx, cb) => {
      console.log('----isModule: ', req.request);
      return cb();
  });

If the current behavior is a bug, please provide the steps to reproduce.
https://github.com/suguanYang/webpack-context-require-issue

What is the expected behavior?
keep the same behavior as the import statement, a relative path should take precedence

Other relevant information:
webpack version: 5.91.0
Node.js version: 20.10.0
Operating System: Linux
Additional tools:

[suguanYang]

@harshdev2909 Thank you for raising this! After reviewing Webpack's source code, I noticed this behavior appears to have been intentionally introduced in here, which was added 5 years ago.

To help clarify, could you elaborate on the "modifying the configuration" you're referring to? This would help narrow down the context for further discussion.

[alexander-akait]

That is expected, it is limitation of require.context, note - in ECMA modules I recommend to use

const req = import.meta.webpackContext('./mods', {
    recursive: true,
    regExp: /\.js$/
}); 

Unfortunately when using require.context and import.meta.webpackContext are always trying to resolve as a module, the PR was merged to support ContextReplacementPlugin,

[alexander-akait]

What you try to resolve? With more context I think I can help you better.

[suguanYang]

Just want to be sure is it by design or mistake, I could write some lines of code to bypass it

[alexander-akait]

Yeah, it is by design