[WORKAROUND]: Cannot read property 'name' of undefined in projects using esbuild

[doneel]

Version

5.0.0

Description

Leaving this workaround posted for other desperate visitors from google

This isn't actually a bug with typescript-json-serializer and can be closed (equally googleable).

I was running into the error that it looks like other have run into where you can't serialize anything, and if you're going through google, you're seeing the advice to add these to your .tsconfig:

    "emitDecoratorMetadata": true,
    "experimentalDecorators": true,

My problem was that esbuild doesn't support the emitDecoratorMetadata flag.
Remix.run uses esbuild and probably some other project stacks, and if this is your issue, you need to do some work to enable esbuild plugins to monkeypatch in support for emitDecoratorMetadata.

1. Install esbuild manually (if it's not already there) as well as plugins:

npm install -D esbuild
npm install -D @anatine/esbuild-decorators

2. Create an esbuild-overrides.js file in your project root directory:

/* eslint-disable */
const esbuild = require(`esbuild`);
const Module = require(`module`);
const { esbuildDecorators } = require('@anatine/esbuild-decorators');


const originalRequire = Module.prototype.require;
const originalBuild = esbuild.build;

const build = (options) =>
  originalBuild({
    ...options,
    // add in your overrides here, making sure to preserve original nested options., e.g.
    plugins: [...options.plugins, esbuildDecorators()],
  });

Module.prototype.require = function (id) {
  // when remix requires esbuild, it will get our modified build function from above
  if (id === `esbuild`) {
    return { ...esbuild, build };
  }
  return originalRequire.apply(this, arguments);
};

3. Modify your build scripts to use the esbuild-overrides.js file you just created. I changed

  "scripts": {
    "build": "run-s build:*",
    "dev": "run-p dev:*",
}

to

  "scripts": {
    "build": "cross-env NODE_ENV=production NODE_OPTIONS='-r ./esbuild-overrides' run-s build:*",
    "dev": "cross-env NODE_ENV=development NODE_OPTIONS='-r ./esbuild-overrides' run-p dev:*",
}

I found this solution from remix-run/remix#2208 (comment)

Error

`Cannot read property 'name' of undefined`

### Reproduction

The default remix-run setup.

### On which OS the bug appears?

macOS 12.6

### What is your project type?

Remix

### On which build mode the bug appears?

Dev & prod

### Anything else?

_No response_

[GillianPerard]

Hi thank you for using my lib and posting there a solution to enable decorators for other build tool.

Does it work properly in both dev and prod modes?

[doneel]

Yes- confirming that it works in dev and prod.