Babylon is a JavaScript parser used in Babel.

• The latest ECMAScript version enabled by default (ES2017).
• Comment attachment.
• Support for JSX and Flow.
• Support for experimental language proposals (accepting PRs for anything at least stage-0).

Credits

Heavily based on acorn and acorn-jsx, thanks to the awesome work of @RReverser and @marijnh.

Significant diversions are expected to occur in the future such as streaming, EBNF definitions, sweet.js integration, interspatial parsing and more.

API

babylon.parse(code, [options])

babylon.parseExpression(code, [options])

parse() parses the provided code as an entire ECMAScript program, while parseExpression() tries to parse a single Expression with performance in mind. When in doubt, use .parse().

Options

• allowImportExportEverywhere: By default, import and export declarations can only appear at a program's top level. Setting this option to true allows them anywhere where a statement is allowed.

• allowReturnOutsideFunction: By default, a return statement at the top level raises an error. Set this to true to accept such code.

• allowSuperOutsideMethod: TODO

• sourceType: Indicate the mode the code should be parsed in. Can be either "script" or "module".

• sourceFilename: Correlate output AST nodes with their source filename. Useful when generating code and source maps from the ASTs of multiple input files.

• startLine: By default, the first line of code parsed is treated as line 1. You can provide a line number to alternatively start with. Useful for integration with other source tools.

• plugins: Array containing the plugins that you want to enable.

• strictMode: TODO

• ranges: Adds a ranges property to each node: [node.start, node.end]

Output

Babylon generates AST according to Babel AST format. It is based on ESTree spec with the following deviations:

There is now an estree plugin which reverts these deviations

• Literal token is replaced with StringLiteral, NumericLiteral, BooleanLiteral, NullLiteral, RegExpLiteral
• Property token is replaced with ObjectProperty and ObjectMethod
• MethodDefinition is replaced with ClassMethod
• Program and BlockStatement contain additional directives field with Directive and DirectiveLiteral
• ClassMethod, ObjectProperty, and ObjectMethod value property's properties in FunctionExpression is coerced/brought into the main method node.

AST for JSX code is based on Facebook JSX AST with the addition of one node type:

• JSXText

Semver

Babylon follows semver in most situations. The only thing to note is that some spec-compliancy bug fixes may be released under patch versions.

For example: We push a fix to early error on something like #107 - multiple default exports per file. That would be considered a bug fix even though it would cause a build to fail.

Example

require("babylon").parse("code", {
  // parse in strict mode and allow module declarations
  sourceType: "module",

  plugins: [
    // enable jsx and flow syntax
    "jsx",
    "flow"
  ]
});

Plugins

• estree
• jsx
• flow
• doExpressions
• objectRestSpread
• decorators (Based on an outdated version of the Decorators proposal. Will be removed in a future version of Babylon)
• classProperties
• exportExtensions
• asyncGenerators
• functionBind
• functionSent
• dynamicImport

FAQ

Will Babylon support a plugin system?

Previous issues: babel/babel#1351, #500.

We currently aren't willing to commit to supporting the API for plugins or the resulting ecosystem (there is already enough work maintaining Babel's own plugin system). It's not clear how to make that API effective, and it would limit out ability to refactor and optimize the codebase.

Our current recommendation for those that want to create their own custom syntax is for users to fork Babylon.

To consume your custom parser, you can add to your .babelrc via its npm package name or require it if using JavaScript,

{
  "parserOpts": {
    "parser": "custom-fork-of-babylon-on-npm-here"
  }
}