How to use rnx-bundle in an application created via the "react-native init" command?

[Thanaen]

Hi,

I am very interested in the features offered by rnx-bundle (type-safety and tree shaking integrated in Metro).
I tried to follow this guide:
https://microsoft.github.io/rnx-kit/docs/guides/bundling

But there is something I don't understand.
In the chapter "Configuring Your App", you say that once the configurations are done, you just have to replace the calls to react-native bundle by react-native rnx-bundle. Except that in a project created by react-native init, there is never an explicit call to react-native bundle.

So I wonder: is this guide and the features added by rnx-bundle applicable to "classic" react-native projects, created via the react-native init command?

Thanks in advance, and thanks again for your work on this tool. 😄

[tido64]

I think it just means that where you used to call react-native bundle ..., you can call react-native rnx-bundle ... instead. All the flags that are valid for bundle are valid for rnx-bundle as well. Whether you generated your app from react-native init or something else shouldn't matter.

cc @afoxman

[afoxman]

Hi @Thanaen,

Thanks for trying out the guide and taking time to start a discussion! The rnx-bundle command is definitely for classic RN apps created with react-native init. It's for any RN app, really, where you use the react-native bundle.

I think what's missing here is clear & specific guidance for new react-native init projects. When I wrote this, I was trying to address the more complicated scenario of "I have an existing RN app which I bundle, and I want to start using rnx-bundle". I'll get an issue filed to make this distinction -- like maybe under Configuring your App, I'll have sections for New App and Existing App. (Filed as #1565).

To help you now, @tido64 has the right idea. If you're doing bundling, you can use rnx-bundle in place of bundle. If you're not creating bundles right now, then you can ignore this and come back to it later. One important note -- rnx-bundle isn't quite a drop-in replacement for bundle yet. I'm working on a PR to fix this now, and it should be out soon.

This got me thinking -- we should plug into the react-native init command so it generates an rnx-kit app, which is really just a regular app with rnx-kit configuration/script-commands. I'm now tracking that work in #1263.

[Thanaen]

Hi @afoxman,
Perfect, thanks for your explanations! 👌

[Thanaen]

Hello again, @afoxman & @tido64 !

I have a question again after all this time:
After setting up rnx-bundle as shown on this page https://microsoft.github.io/rnx-kit/docs/guides/bundling#setting-up-the-tools, was I supposed to do a "Find and replace" in my project to replace all react-native start and react-native bundle with react-native rnx-start and react-native rnx-bundle?

I haven't done it, and I wonder if I've felt like I've been using rnx-bundle for months without actually using it. 😆

[afoxman]

Hi @Thanaen, yes, you should use rnx-bundle and rnx-start everywhere you want to use the rnx-kit CLI.

[Thanaen]

Okay, that makes sense. Thank you!