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Update esbuild's __toBinary helper to use Uint8Array.fromBase64 if available #4286
Description
I am implementing something where it would be useful to have a base64-to-uint8array decoder at runtime. Since I'm already loading a few assets with the 'binary' loader, esbuild includes its own fast base64 decoder. However when I try to access it using its name __toBinary esbuild renames it to __toBinary2 because it thinks my __toBinary is something else in the global scope and so it should not clobber that. I could just paste esbuild's implementation into my own files, but esbuild doesn't (can't) remove the second copy which just seems a little dumb. Is there any way to allow module code to reference the same functions that esbuild has when the same thing needs to be done? If not, can one be added?
__toBinary getting renamed:
https://esbuild.github.io/try/#YgAwLjI1LjkALS1sb2FkZXI6LmJpbj1iaW5hcnkgLS1idW5kbGUgLS1mb3JtYXQ9ZXNtAGUAZW50cnkuanMAaW1wb3J0IHggZnJvbSAiLi9mb28uYmluIjsKY29uc29sZS5sb2coX190b0JpbmFyeSgiYWFhYSIpKTsKY29uc29sZS5sb2coeCk7AABmb28uYmluAGFhYWE
Activity
evanw commentedon Sep 16, 2025
This is being renamed because it's an internal implementation detail of esbuild and is supposed to not collide with user code. As such, it's not something that I'm inclined to expose even if it would be useful. This is because esbuild may change it in the future and because the purpose of esbuild isn't to be a helper library of useful functions (and it would be strange to add a special case for this single function).
Along those lines, I should probably consider removing this helper function altogether. At least when targeting a modern browser. This functionality has since been added to the browser itself:
Uint8Array.fromBase64(). I recommend usingUint8Array.fromBase64or (an equivalent polyfill) instead of trying to use esbuild's internal API.dragoncoder047 commentedon Sep 16, 2025
I expected that. (in hindsight I was just checking to make sure esbuild wasn't broken!)
Oh I didn't know about
Uint8Array.fromBase64. Thanks!!!fix #4286: minifier panic due to identity function
evanw commentedon Sep 17, 2025
Reopening this to track esbuild switching to
Uint8Array.fromBase64. I think that should probably be considered a breaking change as it may come up in certain workflows (e.g. using esbuild to bundle for an older version of node without using something like--target=node22).[-]feat: let modules access the same __toBinary that esbuild uses[/-][+]Update esbuild's `__toBinary` helper to use `Uint8Array.fromBase64` if available[/+]fix #4286: use `Uint8Array.fromBase64` if present
fix #4286: use `Uint8Array.fromBase64` if present
fix evanw#4286: use `Uint8Array.fromBase64` if present (evanw#4295)
Update dependency esbuild to v0.28.2 (#2)