aurelia-cli error when using buffer.js - global undefined - aurelia

Question

Created a new project using the aurelia-cli - SystemJS bundler option.
installed htmlparser2 module from npm which has buffer.js as a dependency.
getting the following error when attempting to import htmlparser2:
bluebird.core.js:3434 Error: global is not defined
Evaluating http://localhost:9000/buffer/index
upon inspecting vendor-bundle -> this is the line that creates the error:
Buffer.TYPED_ARRAY_SUPPORT = global.TYPED_ARRAY_SUPPORT !== undefined
? global.TYPED_ARRAY_SUPPORT
: typedArraySupport()
found a similar issue with angualar-cli where the solution was to manually turn on node global
Node global is turned off. It works fine if I manually turn it on again.
The question is how to do this using the aurelia-cli? Any suggestions?
larger code snippet from vendor-bundle
define('buffer/index',['require','exports','module','base64-js','ieee754','isarray'],function (require, exports, module) {/*!
* The buffer module from node.js, for the browser.
*
* #author Feross Aboukhadijeh <feross#feross.org> <http://feross.org>
* #license MIT
*/
/* eslint-disable no-proto */
'use strict'
var base64 = require('base64-js')
var ieee754 = require('ieee754')
var isArray = require('isarray')
exports.Buffer = Buffer
exports.SlowBuffer = SlowBuffer
exports.INSPECT_MAX_BYTES = 50
/**
* If `Buffer.TYPED_ARRAY_SUPPORT`:
* === true Use Uint8Array implementation (fastest)
* === false Use Object implementation (most compatible, even IE6)
*
* Browsers that support typed arrays are IE 10+, Firefox 4+, Chrome 7+, Safari 5.1+,
* Opera 11.6+, iOS 4.2+.
*
* Due to various browser bugs, sometimes the Object implementation will be used even
* when the browser supports typed arrays.
*
* Note:
*
* - Firefox 4-29 lacks support for adding new properties to `Uint8Array` instances,
* See: https://bugzilla.mozilla.org/show_bug.cgi?id=695438.
*
* - Chrome 9-10 is missing the `TypedArray.prototype.subarray` function.
*
* - IE10 has a broken `TypedArray.prototype.subarray` function which returns arrays of
* incorrect length in some situations.
* We detect these buggy browsers and set `Buffer.TYPED_ARRAY_SUPPORT` to `false` so they
* get the Object implementation, which is slower but behaves correctly.
*/
Buffer.TYPED_ARRAY_SUPPORT = global.TYPED_ARRAY_SUPPORT !== undefined
? global.TYPED_ARRAY_SUPPORT
: typedArraySupport()

Answer 1

I believe you are using cli built-in bundler (I wrote it), not webpack.
Yes, nodejs global var global is currently not supported. Also nodejs global vars process and Buffer have similar issues.
The cli doc has a patch to support process and Buffer.
import process from 'process';
window.process = process;
import {Buffer} from 'buffer';
window.Buffer = Buffer;
You can try to add one more patch for global.
window.global = window;
Ok why cli has the issue
cli's tracing algorithm uses rjs (requirejs optimizer) parser, it's bit old, does not detect global vars (technically it does not do variable scope analysis).
I have another WIP bundler called dumber which solved the limitation with a new parser which detects global vars. It automatically patch nodejs global vars at module level based on need.
In long term, we will drop the code for cli built-in bundler, then wrap dumber and make it backward compatible.