webpack resolves symlinked child node_modules due to unused nodeModulesDir in template

[jbockle]

I'm submitting a bug report

• Library Version:
  current (I'm using 0.34.0)

Please tell us about your environment:

• Operating System:
  Windows 10

• Node Version:
  10.4

• NPM Version:
  6.4.1

• Browser:
  all

• Language:
  TypeScript

• Loader/bundler:
  Webpack

Current behavior:
See webpack/webpack#8322
child node_modules dependencies are being bundled

• What is the expected behavior?
  only node_modules root should be resolved

• What is the motivation / use case for changing the behavior?
  

  cli/lib/resources/content/webpack.config.template.js

  Line 20 in cb78d99

  const nodeModulesDir = path.resolve(__dirname, 'node_modules');

  has unused variable that should be used in resolve.modules

[Alexander-Taran]

Would you like to provide a pull request for it @jbockle ?

[EisenbergEffect]

We're going to need to revert the above fix due to a regression it caused.

[3cp]

Sorry @jbockle we need to find other way to support this. It's too risky to change webpack's default module resolution.

[rockResolve]

In addition to #1037, the above fix forces all modules to use child modules from the node_modules root regardless of versioning. No multiple versions warnings are given.

If you really want to use a single version (i.e. you know better than the package insisting on a different version), you can use webpack's resolve.alias.
https://www.npmjs.com/package/duplicate-package-checker-webpack-plugin#resolving-duplicate-packages-in-your-bundle

In my case, once the fix was reverted I started getting warnings that I had multiple versions of jquery: one from root & one in a child node_modules.

I checked via --analyze, but I was only getting one version without any alias code. It appears a separate aliasing fix of adding a ProviderPlugin entry, was additionally fixing the module resolution to just the root version.

Workaround jquery example:

webpack.config.js 
    plugins
            new ProvidePlugin({
                $: "jquery",
                jQuery: "jquery",
               "window.jQuery": "jquery"
                //As well as aliasing multiple nicknames,
                // this is also results in only the node_modules root version being used
             }

By default, module resolution path is current folder (./**) and node_modules. So the above code results in only the node_modules root jquery version being included. Once the fix was reverted, this continued but webpack showed a multiple versions warning.