Babel file is copied without being transformed

Question

I have this code:

\"use strict\";

import browserSync from \"browser-sync\";
import httpProxy from \"http-proxy\";

let proxy = httpProxy.createProxyServer({         


        

Answer 1

Same error, different cause:

Transpiling had worked before and then suddenly stopped working, with files simply being copied as is.

Turns out I opened the .babelrc at some point and Windows decided to append .txt to the filename. Now that .babelrc.txt wasn't recognized by babel. Removing the .txt suffix fixed that.

Answer 2

Ultimate solution

I wasted 3 days on this

import react from 'react' unexpected identifier

I tried modifying webpack.config.js and package.json files, and adding .babelrc, installing & updating packages via npm, I've visited many, many pages but nothing has worked.

---

What worked? Two words: npm start. That's right.

run the

npm start 

command in the terminal to launch a local server

...

(mind that it might not work straight away but perhaps only after you do some work on npm because before trying this out I had deleted all the changes in those files and it worked, so after you're really done, treat it as your last resort)

---

I found that info on this neat page. It's in Polish but feel free to use Google translate on it.

Answer 3

In year 2018:

Install following packages if you haven't yet:

npm install babel-loader babel-preset-react

webpack.config.js

{
    test: /\.jsx?$/,
    exclude: /node_modules/,
    use: [
      {
        loader: 'babel-loader',
        options: {
          presets: ['es2015','react']  // <--- !`react` must be part of presets!
        }
      }
    ],
  }

Answer 4

I had the same problem with a different cause:

The code I was trying to load was not under the package directory, and Babel does not default to transpiling outside the package directory.

I solved it by moving the imported code, but perhaps I could have also used some inclusion statement in the Babel configuration.