Create a node.js target for xterm.js

Details

• OS version: node
• xterm.js version: 4.4.0

> require('xterm')
Thrown:
ReferenceError: window is not defined
    at Object.<anonymous> (/private/tmp/test/node_modules/xterm/lib/xterm.js:1:224)
    at Module._compile (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:778:30)
    at Object.Module._extensions..js (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:789:10)
    at Module.load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:653:32)
    at tryModuleLoad (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:593:12)
    at Function.Module._load (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:585:3)
    at Module.require (internal/modules/cjs/loader.js:692:17)
    at require (internal/modules/cjs/helpers.js:25:18)

Steps to reproduce

https://runkit.com/embed/q7w97d0b8wj2

Looks like webpack4 bug, See: https://medium.com/@JakeXiao/window-is-undefined-in-umd-library-output-for-webpack4-858af1b881df

[Tyriar]

Good progress has been made on this. I’m not sure just yet how we’ll end up publishing the module though as ./package.json in the root is xterm and points at typing/xterm.d.ts. I want to be able to publish xterm-core with a totally separate set of typings, readme and package.json while at the same time don’t really want to include that in the src/ directory.

[the21st]

I’d also love it if xterm supported node. I originally thought node is supported, since xterm can already run in “headless” mode: https://github.com/xtermjs/xterm.js/issues/266 , without being attached to a DOM.

I tried a simple workaround in my code, just setting global.window = undefined before require('xterm') and that fixed the ReferenceError and everything is working as expected. It’s just a pain to have to set that everywhere, including in tests.

Awesome work on xterm by the way 🙂

Edit: this is what got me to think Node.js should work 🙂 https://github.com/xtermjs/xterm.js/blob/master/src/Terminal.ts#L70-L71 :

// Let it work inside Node.js for automated testing purposes.
const document = (typeof window !== 'undefined') ? window.document : null;