How to use ES6+ features in nodejs

This article is about how to use es6+ in nodejs project

Initialising project with npm

npm init -y

Installing babel plugins for es6+ features

npm i -D @babel/cli @babel/core @babel/plugin-proposal-class-properties @babel/plugin-transform-runtime @babel/preset-env

Adding babel support for project

touch .babelrc

Paste the following content in .babelrc

{
    "presets": ["@babel/preset-env"],
    "plugins": ["@babel/plugin-proposal-class-properties", "@babel/transform-runtime"]
}

Babel is not a compiler or interpreter it is just a transpiler so we have to transpile es6 to es5 using babel then we have to execute that transpiled code. For that we can write npm script.

Add the following script to package.json

"build": "babel src -d dist",
"start": "npm run build && node dist"

Now create src folder and start writing es6+ code inside that folder. Run npm start it will create dist folder inside that folder we can find transpiled code.

Cheers!!! You can now extend your support by buying me a Coffee.