Static asset in-lining

When 0.10 is released (with #1305), I have a feeling we’ll be seeing a lot more of issues like #1938.

These users have a perfectly legitimate use case and I believe we should handle it. They desire to require a text file, or other types (e.g. markdown, other markup), and receive raw data. There was also a recent issue asking to require JS as text and not processed as a module.

There are many imaginable use cases for this, and have been a huge amount of issues we’ve responded to with a

put it in a export default '';

To remedy this, I believe we should in-line assets via fs.readFileSync(...), similar (identical) to brfs. This would allow users to require any arbitrary file as UTF8 text or a Buffer.

[jkschneider]

While debate continues on this, you can use raw-loader today without ejecting or forking with:

/* eslint import/no-webpack-loader-syntax: off */
import QuickStart from '!raw-loader!./Sections/QuickStart.md';

The leading ! is important, as otherwise all but a defined set of excluded extensions will get loaded by file-loader instead.

I know this isn’t recommended, but I find an explicit binding to Webpack to be more palatable than eject or forking. Feels like a tradeoff between trouble caused by some hypothetical future state where CRA no longer uses Webpack and trouble now maintaining my fork or falling behind on updates to key pieces of the setup.

[johnflux]

Note that the !raw-loader! approach breaks the jest tests.