Getting “Error: `output.path` needs to be an absolute path or `/`”

Question

I am new to JS development, in an attempt to hot load changes using webpack-dev-server I keep above exception. The exact stack is:

Error: `output.path` needs         


        

Answer 1

You could use __dirname to get current executed file's path.

const webpack = require('webpack')

module.exports = {
    mode: 'development',
    entry: __dirname + "/src/index.js",
    output: {
        path: __dirname + "/dist",
        filename: 'main.js'
    }
}

You could also import build-in path API & use resolve method, i think this one is prefer by webpack

const webpack = require('webpack')
const path = require('path')

module.exports = {
    mode: 'development',
    entry:  path.resolve("./src/index.js"),
    output: {
        path: path.resolve("./dist"),
        filename: 'main.js'
    }
}