"SVG as a component" doesn't quite work in 2.x

We merged https://github.com/facebookincubator/create-react-app/pull/3718 and released the first 2.x alpha, but quickly discovered a few issues:

• Importing SVG from CSS is now broken, you get [Object object] in URLs.
• While that can be fixed by adding a named export called toString() here (which would just return the URL), it looks like the resulting JS bundle contains the React component as soon as CSS imports it. It’s my impression that webpack CSS pipeline still relies on CommonJS and therefore can’t tree shake the component.

I’m not sure if there’s any solution even possible here 😢 We probably need to revert the feature.

Just in case, pinging @neoziro @iansu for more ideas.

[threepointone]

I’ll take a crack at an implementation after work hours, think this is important enough to exist before 2.0 launches

[gaearon]

Hmm. I don’t think a macro that generates a webpack import is much better than just a webpack import. Both lock you into a non-standard system.

The strong side of the macro is that it can run without webpack. Coupling it to webpack removes that strong side.

The strong side of Babel+webpack (but no macro) is that it “looks” seamlessly.

I think combining macro+webpack doesn’t give us benefits of either approach.