In Magento 2's RequireJS implementation, many core modules use a configuration something like this
map: {
'*': {
editTrigger: 'mage/edit-trigger',
addClass: 'Magento_Translation/add-class'
}
}
In RequireJS, the map configuration directive allows developers to tell RequireJS
When you load module X, and it uses module Y, replace module Y with module Z -- but only for Module X
Or, in code
map: {
'modulex':{
'moduley':'modulez'
}
}
The map feature basically allows you to swap out module definitions via configuration -- in Magento speak, it's a module rewrite feature for javascript.
What's not clear to me though is Magento's heavy use of the * as the key for the map property.
map: {
'*': {
editTrigger: 'mage/edit-trigger',
addClass: 'Magento_Translation/add-class'
}
}
The * basically says *do this mapping for all modules, and its intended use case is is provide a base module aliasing that can be changed for more specific modules.
However, Magento appears to use it as a replacement for RequireJS's paths property. i.e. it seems Magento could have achieved the same thing with the following
paths: {
'editTrigger': 'mage/edit-trigger',
'addClass': 'Magento_Translation/add-class',
}
and then selectively does specific mapping when needed.
Does anyone know why Magento chose map:* as its method for path aliasing? i.e -- is my understanding of the difference between map and path incomplete -- or is this one of those "Six of one, half dozen the other" things. Or is there some additional behavior Magento gets by doing it this way.
Not asking to solve a specific problem, asking to clarify any misunderstandings of RequireJS and Magento's implementation before I start writing heavily about it :)
