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The current officially-sanctioned Node.js method of performing ESM hot module reloading is to (I kid you not) “leak memory.”

Je désespère!

https://github.com/nodejs/modules/issues/307

#nodeJS #ESM

Invalidate cache when using import · Issue #307 · nodejs/modules

How do I invalidate the cache of import? I have a function that installs missing modules when an import fails, but the import statement seems to preserve the failure while the script is still runni...
GitHub
#nodejs #esm
in reply to Aral Balkan

Sven Slootweg
Sven Slootweg
• •
While I do think this is a real issue (and *yet another* reason why ESM is not a suitable replacement for CJS), it should be noted that hot-reloading modules is never a safe thing to do in JS regardless of the module system - the language does not provide sufficient state isolation guarantees to prevent state leaking between versions of modules, and this can lead to very strange non-reproducible bugs.
in reply to Sven Slootweg

Aral Balkan
Aral Balkan
• •
@joepie91 Indeed. And yet needs must :)

That said, I’ve actually decided to try a far more pragmatic approach that I’m pretty sure will handle the 80% use case very well. And I plan on seeing how much closer I can get that to 100% over time.

Otherwise, you’re looking at either memory leaks, using workers, or ­– if you keep going down the rabbit hole (which I’ve done several times now) – recreating Node’s module system.
@Sven Slootweg
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