#Output Files

This chapter will introduces the directory structure of output files and how to control the output directory of different types of files.

#Default Directory Structure

The following is a basic directory for output files. By default, the compiled files will be output in the dist directory of current project.

dist
├── static
│   ├── css
│   │   ├── [name].[hash].css
│   │   └── [name].[hash].css.map
│   │
│   └── js
│       ├── [name].[hash].js
│       ├── [name].[hash].js.LICENSE.txt
│       └── [name].[hash].js.map
│
└── html
    └── [name]
        └── index.html

The most common output files are HTML files, JS files, and CSS files:

• HTML files: default output to the html directory.
• JS files: default output to static/js directory,
• CSS files: default output to the static/css directory.

In addition, JS files and CSS files sometimes generate some related files:

• License files: contains open source license, which is output to the same level directory of the JS file, and adds .LICENSE.txt suffix.
• Source Map files: contains the source code mappings, which is output to the same level directory of JS files and CSS files, and adds a .map suffix.

In the filename, [name] represents the entry name corresponding to this file, such as index, main. [hash] is the hash value generated based on the content of the file.

#Modify the Directory

Modern.js provides some configs to modify the directory or filename, you can:

• Modify the filename through output.filename.
• Modify the output path of through output.distPath.
• Modify the license file through output.legalComments.
• Remove Source Map file through output.sourceMap.
• Remove the folder corresponding to the HTML files through html.outputStructure.

#Static Assets

When you import static assets such as images, SVG, fonts, media, etc. in the code, they will also be output to the dist/static directory, and automatically assigned to the corresponding subdirectories according to the file type:

dist
└── static
    ├── image
    │   └── foo.[hash].png
    │
    ├── svg
    │   └── bar.[hash].svg
    │
    ├── font
    │   └── baz.[hash].woff2
    │
    └── media
        └── qux.[hash].mp4

You can use the output.distPath config to uniformly input these static assets into a directory, for example, output to the assets directory:

export default {
  output: {
    distPath: {
      image: 'assets',
      svg: 'assets',
      font: 'assets',
      media: 'assets',
    },
  },
};

The above config produces the following directory structure:

dist
└── assets
    ├── foo.[hash].png
    ├── bar.[hash].svg
    ├── baz.[hash].woff2
    └── qux.[hash].mp4

#Flatten the Directory

Sometimes you don't want the dist directory to have too many levels, you can set the directory to an empty string to flatten the generated directory.

See the example below:

export default {
  output: {
    distPath: {
      js: '',
      css: '',
      html: '',
    },
  },
  html: {
    outputStructure: 'flat',
  }
};

The above config produces the following directory structure:

dist
├── [name].[hash].css
├── [name].[hash].css.map
├── [name].[hash].js
├── [name].[hash].js.map
└── [name].html

#Not Written to Disk

By default, Modern.js will write the generated files to disk, so developers can view the file content or configure proxy rules for static assets.

In development, you can choose to keep the generated files in the Dev Server's memory to reduce the overhead of file operations.

Just set the dev.writeToDisk config to false:

export default {
  dev: {
    writeToDisk: false,
  },
};