Feature: Sort imports by specifiers

[blakegearin]

Describe the rule

I feel like I must be missing this somewhere in the settings or past issues. I'd like to sort my imports by specifiers (export names) instead of the paths they're coming from.

Code example

import { B } from 'y'
import { Y } from 'b'
import { b } from 'z'
import { y } from 'b'

import A from 'z.js'
import Z from 'a.js'
import a from 'y.js'
import z from 'b.js'

import type { Response, Request } from 'express'

import bodyParser from 'body-parser'
import defaultsDeep from 'lodash/defaultsDeep'
import express from 'express'
import fs from 'node:fs/promises'
import map from 'lodash/map'
import mongoose from 'mongoose'
import passport from 'passport'
import path from 'node:path'
import session from 'express-session'

import User from '~/models/User'
import authRoutes from '~/routes/auth'
import initializePassport from '~/config/passport'
import logger from '~/middleware/logger'

import dbConfig from './db'

Additional comments

No response

Validations

• Read the docs.
• Check that there isn't already an issue that reports the same bug to avoid creating a duplicate.

[azat-io]

Thank you for your issue.

At the moment, we do not support this. How important do you think this issue is, and what do you think the API should look like?

[hugop95]

@blakegearin cc @azat-io

What should be the behavior when an import does not have a specifier/has multiple specifiers ?

• import something
• import { a, z } from "something" ➡️ Should we evaluate a or z ?
• Same for import { z, a } from "something"

How could we make this non-opinionated ?

In my opinion, the most straightforward implementation would be to add a sortBy: 'specifier' | 'path' (default path) option, similar to the sortByValue: boolean of sort-enums.

[azat-io]

I'm not sure if this is a common type of sorting.

On the other hand, we already have similar functionality in sort-enums.

[blakegearin]

This is the way the ESLint sort-imports rule works. Here's some that's valid with their defaults.

// 'sort-imports': 'error',

import 'module-without-export.js';
import * as bar from 'bar.js';
import * as foo from 'foo.js';
import {alpha, beta} from 'alpha.js';
import {delta, gamma} from 'delta.js';
import A from 'z.js';
import { B } from 'y';
import { Y } from 'b';
import Z from 'a.js';
import a from 'y.js';
import { b } from 'z';
import { y } from 'b';
import z from 'b.js';

I think of this as a simple string sorting, since they're the first characters encountered after import. I would use theirs if --fix worked, but alas.

In my opinion, the most straightforward implementation would be to add a sortBy: 'specifier' | 'path' (default path) option, similar to the sortByValue: boolean of sort-enums.

Yes, I think that would suffice. I would assume import something gets its own section, and the first import would get evaluated when multiple exist.