46 lines
		
	
	
		
			1.9 KiB
		
	
	
	
		
			Markdown
		
	
	
	
	
	
			
		
		
	
	
			46 lines
		
	
	
		
			1.9 KiB
		
	
	
	
		
			Markdown
		
	
	
	
	
	
| ---
 | |
| title: Initializing the React Project with Webpack
 | |
| ---
 | |
| The first thing to do is open our terminal/command line. We need to install Webpack and Webpack Dev Server globally.
 | |
| 
 | |
| *   <a href='https://docs.npmjs.com/getting-started/installing-npm-packages-globally' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>Help: More about installing Node Modules globally</a>
 | |
| 
 | |
|     npm install webpack webpack-dev-server -g
 | |
| 
 | |
| Installing these modules globally means that we can refer to use their respective command line interfaces in the terminal. Installing Webpack allows us to run `webpack` from the terminal to execute a Webpack script. Installing Webpack Dev Server allows us to run a localhost server using our Webpack configuration. This will all become clear a little later.
 | |
| 
 | |
| In your directory of choice, make a new directory, for example `react-webpack-example`, and change directory into it:
 | |
| 
 | |
|     mkdir react-webpack-example && cd $_
 | |
| 
 | |
| Now that we're in our new directory, we need to create our Webpack file, which will live in the root. This is a configuration file, and so we name it `webpack.config.js`.
 | |
| 
 | |
|     touch webpack.config.js
 | |
| 
 | |
| Now, we can go ahead and <a href='https://docs.npmjs.com/cli/init' target='_blank' rel='nofollow'>initialise an npm project</a> using the following command:
 | |
| 
 | |
|     npm init
 | |
| 
 | |
| We can go ahead and press the enter key to cycle through the options presented to us in the terminal.
 | |
| 
 | |
| The `npm init` command will create a `package.json` file, which is going to contain important data about our project.
 | |
| 
 | |
| So far, this is what our tree should look like:  
 | |
| 
 | |
|     .
 | |
|     ├── package.json
 | |
|     └── webpack.config.js
 | |
| 
 | |
| If you open your `package.json` file, you should see something like this:
 | |
| 
 | |
|     {
 | |
|       "name": "react-webpack-example",
 | |
|       "version": "1.0.0",
 | |
|       "description": "",
 | |
|       "main": "webpack.config.js",
 | |
|       "scripts": {
 | |
|         "test": "echo \"Error: no test specified\" && exit 1"
 | |
|       },
 | |
|       "author": "",
 | |
|       "license": "ISC"
 | |
|     } |