I'm new to Node and In this package.json for React Typescript project I understand what rimraf does but what is the --tsconfig doing at the end?

When I run the prebuild script I see that the file typedoc.json is deleted. But why this --tsconfig? There is a tsconfig.json file but I can’t see that rimraf is doing anything

"scripts": {
    "build": "tsdx build --transpileOnly --entry ./src/index.js",
    "prebuild": "npm run docs",
    "prepublishOnly": "npm run build",
    "docs": "rimraf typedoc.json && typedoc --tsconfig",
    "lint": "eslint . --ext .js,.jsx,.ts,.tsx"
},

The source for this code is notistack package.json

CodePudding user response：

Firstly, rimraf will not do anything to the tsconfig.json file. It’s important to understand that the docs script in the package.json file, i.e. this part;

"docs": "rimraf typedoc.json && typedoc --tsconfig",

consists of two separate commands and together they are referred to as a "compound command".

The typedoc --tsconfig part is the second command and it’s not part of the rimraf command because it’s on the right-hand side of the && operator. The --tsconfig part is actually an argument for the typedoc command (...it is not an argument for the rimraf command).

Essentially the typedoc command and its associated --tsconfig argument, that is on the right-hand side of the && operator, is only invoked if the command on the left-hand side of it, (i.e. the first command rimraf typedoc.json), completes successfully with a zero exit code.

The typedoc command is what generates documentation for TypeScript projects.

The --tsconfig argument for thé typedoc command is described as follows in the documentation

--tsconfig <path/to/tsconfig.json>

Specify a typescript config file that should be loaded. If not specified TypeDoc will look for 'tsconfig.json' in the current directory.

Note: In your usage of the --tsconfig argument it doesn’t specify a custom filepath to the tsconfig.json file, therefore it utilizes the one in the current directory.