How to load image files with webpack file-loader

I am using webpack to manage a reactjs project. I want to load images in javascript by webpack file-loader. Below is the webpack.config.js:

const webpack = require('webpack');
const path = require('path');
const NpmInstallPlugin = require('npm-install-webpack-plugin');

const PATHS = {
    react: path.join(__dirname, 'node_modules/react/dist/react.min.js'),
    app: path.join(__dirname, 'src'),
    build: path.join(__dirname, './dist')
};

module.exports = {
    entry: {
        jsx: './app/index.jsx',
    },
    output: {
        path: PATHS.build,
        filename: 'app.bundle.js',
    },
    watch: true,
    devtool: 'eval-source-map',
    relativeUrls: true,
    resolve: {
        extensions: ['', '.js', '.jsx', '.css', '.less'],
        modulesDirectories: ['node_modules'],
        alias: {
            normalize_css: __dirname + '/node_modules/normalize.css/normalize.css',
        }
    },
    module: {
        preLoaders: [

            {
                test: /.js$/,
                loader: "source-map-loader"
            },
        ],
        loaders: [

            {
                test: /.html$/,
                loader: 'file?name=[name].[ext]',
            },
            {
                test: /.jsx?$/,
                exclude: /node_modules/,
                loader: 'babel-loader?presets=es2015',
            },
            {test: /.css$/, loader: 'style-loader!css-loader'},
            {test: /.(jpe?g|png|gif|svg)$/i, loader: "file-loader?name=/public/icons/[name].[ext]"},
            {
                test: /.js$/,
                exclude: /node_modules/,
                loaders: ['babel-loader?presets=es2015']
            }
        ]
    },
    plugins: [
        new webpack.optimize.UglifyJsPlugin({
            compress: {
                warnings: false,
            },
            output: {
                comments: false,
            },
        }),
        new NpmInstallPlugin({
            save: true // --save
        }),
        new webpack.DefinePlugin({
            "process.env": {
                NODE_ENV: JSON.stringify("production")
            }
        }),
    ],
    devServer: {
        colors: true,
        contentBase: __dirname,
        historyApiFallback: true,
        hot: true,
        inline: true,
        port: 9091,
        progress: true,
        stats: {
            cached: false
        }
    }
}

I used this line to load image files and copy them to dist/public/icons directory and keep the same file name.

{test: /.(jpe?g|png|gif|svg)$/i, loader: "file-loader?name=/public/icons/[name].[ext]"}

But I have two problems when using it. When I run webpack command, the image file was copied to dist/public/icons/ directory as expected. However it was also copied to dist directory with this file name “df55075baa16f3827a57549950901e90.png”.

Below is my project structure:

Another problem is that I used below code to import this image file but it is not showing on the browser. If I am using url ‘public/icons/imageview_item_normal.png’ on the img tag, it works fine. How to use the object imported from the image file?

import React, {Component} from 'react';
import {render} from 'react-dom';
import img from 'file!../../public/icons/imageview_item_normal.png'

export default class MainComponent extends Component {

  render() {
    return (
      <div style={styles.container}>
        download
        <img src={img}/>
      </div>
    )
  }

}

const styles = {
  container: {
    width: '100%',
    height: '100%',
  }
}

Answer

Regarding problem #1

Once you have the file-loader configured in the webpack.config, whenever you use import/require it tests the path against all loaders, and in case there is a match it passes the contents through that loader. In your case, it matched

{
    test: /.(jpe?g|png|gif|svg)$/i, 
    loader: "file-loader?name=/public/icons/[name].[ext]"
}

// For newer versions of Webpack it should be
{
    test: /.(jpe?g|png|gif|svg)$/i, 
    loader: 'file-loader',
    options: {
      name: '/public/icons/[name].[ext]'
    }
}

and therefore you see the image emitted to

dist/public/icons/imageview_item_normal.png

which is the wanted behavior.

The reason you are also getting the hash file name, is because you are adding an additional inline file-loader. You are importing the image as:

'file!../../public/icons/imageview_item_normal.png'.

Prefixing with file!, passes the file into the file-loader again, and this time it doesn’t have the name configuration.

So your import should really just be:

import img from '../../public/icons/imageview_item_normal.png'

Update

As noted by @cgatian, if you actually want to use an inline file-loader, ignoring the webpack global configuration, you can prefix the import with two exclamation marks (!!):

import '!!file!../../public/icons/imageview_item_normal.png'.

Regarding problem #2

After importing the png, the img variable only holds the path the file-loader “knows about”, which is public/icons/[name].[ext] (aka "file-loader? name=/public/icons/[name].[ext]"). Your output dir “dist” is unknown. You could solve this in two ways:

1. Run all your code under the “dist” folder
2. Add publicPath property to your output config, that points to your output directory (in your case ./dist).

Example:

output: {
  path: PATHS.build,
  filename: 'app.bundle.js',
  publicPath: PATHS.build
},