Feature Request: Options to keep `require.resolve` as external

Continuation of https://github.com/webpack/webpack/issues/8636 (closed because of inactivity) Related: https://github.com/webpack/webpack/issues/9393 (closed because of inactivity)

versions

webpack 5.54.0
webpack-cli 4.8.0

Feature request

// webpack.config.js
const path = require('path');

/** @type {import('webpack').Configuration} */
module.exports = {
  mode: 'none',
  entry: './src/entry.js',

  externals: [
    ({request}, cb) => request.startsWith('extpack') ? cb(null, 'extpack', 'commonjs') : cb(),
  ],

  output: {
    path: path.resolve(__dirname, "dist"),
    filename: "[name].js",
  },
};

// src/entry.js
console.log(require('extpack'));
console.log(require.resolve('extpack/some/file.txt'))

It produces following dist/main.js

// ...
/* 1 */
/***/ ((module) => {

"use strict";
module.exports = require("extpack");

/***/ })
// ...
console.log(__webpack_require__(1));
console.log(/*require.resolve*/(1))
// ...

What is the expected behavior?

With some options to produce following.

// ...
console.log(__webpack_require__(1));
// OR
// console.log(require('extpack'))
console.log(require.resolve('extpack/some/file.txt'))
// ...

What is motivation or use case for adding/changing the behavior?

Entrust all resolutions about some packages to node. It may seem no need to use webpack, but I’d like to use this combined with vercel/next.js.

Also it seems no matter to bundle, but some packages are using node native binaries (nodejs/node-gyp) like require('./build/some.node') or require.resolve('./build/some.node'). They should be resolved in unbundled environment. *.node can’t be run only with itself, so I can’t use type: 'asset/resource' for this. It can be seen as *.node is out of webpack resolution/depedants detection.

How should this be implemented in your opinion?

• New import type for externals, like "commonjs-require-resolve"
• And add new property like originalType in context arg to know whether it is require.resolve’d in original source.

// ...
externals: [
  ({request, originalType}, cb) => request.startsWith('extpack') ? cb(null, 'extpack', originalType === 'commonjs-require-resolve' ? originalType : 'commonjs') : cb(),
],
// ...

I’m not passing originalType itself because to correctly transform import ... for example.

Some type of imports are not used as output, so they should be something like "unknown", null, "input-import", etc…

EDIT:

1. or add new types ("native-commonjs").

// ...
externals: [
  ({request}, cb) => request.startsWith('extpack') ? cb(null, 'extpack', 'native-commonjs') : cb(),
],
// ...

Are you willing to work on this yourself? a little but I’m sorry I can’t work it on soon. It may be after Dec 2021

[The-x-Theorist]

I want to work on this issue, but I need little help in this before starting.

[alexander-akait]

@LitileXueZha Hash used internally not only for contenthash, and for perf/comparation/predictable output. Why you need absolute path?