Ability to detect within webpack if app is being built for release

[cowboyd]

Is your feature request related to a problem? Please describe.

We have a set of flags that we're passing to webpack in order to make decisions about the build... Thinks like --env.gateway and --env.bluetooth which we'd like to have different defaults depending on whether this is a debug build or a release build.

We haven't been able to find a documented way of determining at build time if we're building with --release

Describe the solution you'd like

A way to know within our webpack environment if we're building for release, or debug. That way, we can have a different set of defaults for our flags.

I would simulate this by passing an --env.profile=release, e.g.

$ tns build ios --release --env.profile=release

It would be nice to see if we couldn't keep these two in sync.

Describe alternatives you've considered

See above for alternatives ( a manually maintained --env.profile flag.
Additional context

[DimitarTachev]

Hi @cowboyd,

We've already discussed this internally and most probably we will add it for our 6.0.0 release.

We have the same requirements in our Webpack configs (e.g. take a look here), and the checks are currently based on the --env.uglify flag as most often the release builds are used along with uglify.

I suggest you track this issue and base your checks on the uglify flag (don't forget to pass it to your release build) till we implement a better solution.

[rosen-vladimirov]

With NativeScript 6.0.0 you can check the env.production value - CLI will set it to true when --release is passed.

NOTE: This version will be set as well when user passes --env.production