TypeORM Entity in NESTJS - Cannot use import statement outside a module

Started new project with 'nest new' command. Works fine until I add entity file to it.

Got following error:

import { Entity, Column, PrimaryGeneratedColumn } from 'typeorm';

^^^^^^

SyntaxError: Cannot use import statement outside a module

What do I miss?

Adding Entity to Module:

import { Module } from '@nestjs/common';
import { BooksController } from './books.controller';
import { BooksService } from './books.service';
import { BookEntity } from './book.entity';
import { TypeOrmModule } from '@nestjs/typeorm';

@Module({
  imports: [TypeOrmModule.forFeature([BookEntity])],
  controllers: [BooksController],
  providers: [BooksService],
})
export class BooksModule {}

app.module.ts:

import { Module } from '@nestjs/common';
import { AppController } from './app.controller';
import { AppService } from './app.service';
import { TypeOrmModule } from '@nestjs/typeorm';
import { Connection } from 'typeorm';
import { BooksModule } from './books/books.module';

@Module({
  imports: [TypeOrmModule.forRoot()],
  controllers: [AppController],
  providers: [AppService],
})
export class AppModule {}

Solution 1:

My assumption is that you have a TypeormModule configuration with an entities property that looks like this:

entities: ['src/**/*.entity.{ts,js}']

or like

entities: ['../**/*.entity.{ts,js}']

The error you are getting is because you are attempting to import a ts file in a js context. So long as you aren't using webpack you can use this instead so that you get the correct files

entities: [join(__dirname, '**', '*.entity.{ts,js}')]

where join is imported from the path module. Now __dirname will resolve to src or dist and then find the expected ts or js file respectively. let me know if there is still an issue going on.

EDIT 1/10/2020

The above assumes the configuration is done is a javascript compatible file (.js or in the TypeormModule.forRoot() passed parameters). If you are using an ormconfig.json instead, you should use

entities: ["dist/**/*.entity.js"]

so that you are using the compiled js files and have no chance to use the ts files in your code.

Solution 2:

In the TypeORM documentation, i found a specific section for Typescript.

This section says:

Install ts-node globally:

npm install -g ts-node

Add typeorm command under scripts section in package.json

"scripts" {
    ...
    "typeorm": "ts-node -r tsconfig-paths/register ./node_modules/typeorm/cli.js"    
}

Then you may run the command like this:

npm run typeorm migration:run

If you need to pass parameter with dash to npm script, you will need to add them after --. For example, if you need to generate, the command is like this:

npm run typeorm migration:generate -- -n migrationNameHere

This works with my file config:

{
    "type": "postgres",
    "host": "yourhost",
    "port": 5423,
    "username": "username",
    "password": "password",
    "database": "your_db",
    "synchronize": true,
    "entities": [
        "src/modules/**/*.entity.{ts,js}"
    ],
    "migrations": [
        "src/migrations/**/*.{ts,js}"
    ],
    "cli": {
        "entitiesDir": "src/modules",
        "migrationsDir": "src/migrations"
    }
}

Then you can run the generate command.