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Troubleshooting Webpack 5 errors when importing BetaAnalyticsDataClient from @google-analytics/data
Hey there, I’m working on a pretty cool project where I’m building a custom dashboard on an angular app and integrating Google Analytics 4 data using the Google Analytics Data API. I’m using the Node.JS client libraries from Google Analytics’ tutorial, which had been going pretty smoothly right up until I tried to insert the script into my Angular app. I was hoping for a smooth transfer, but instead, I encountered a pack of webpack 5 errors that rushed me on “ng serve”.
The real head-scratcher seems to be importing BetaAnalyticsDataClient. Every time I’ve tried importing it, nodemon has been throwing a fit and shooting out webpack errors. Now, my setup isn’t all that complicated – it essentially boils down to a three-component structure: there’s ‘site-statistics.component’ with its html and scss files, a script called ‘google-analytics.ts’ located in a sub-folder named “services”, and then there’s the ‘site-statistics.component’ importing a function from google-analytics.ts .
If this sounds like something to do with how I am using the Google Analytics Data API client library, can you tell me how I might be able to extract the response from the script and feed it to my angular component?
Just so you’re up to speed, let me share what I’ve already tried to resolve this:
- I’ve attempted adding a resolve.fallback on webpack.config.ts, but to no avail.
- I’ve attempted to set paths to each package on my TSCONFIG.JSON.
- I’ve even given react-scripts-rewired a go.
If you think that the problem lies in my usage of the Google Analytics Data API client library, could you guide me on how I can retrieve the response from the script and forward it to my Angular component?
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2 Replies
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It seems like the issue you’re encountering could be due to attempting to use the Node.js client library in a frontend Angular application. The client library is designed to be used in a server-side environment with Node.js and might not work properly in a browser environment used by Angular.
A recommended approach is to communicate with your Node.js backend from your Angular app. You can create a new endpoint on your server that handles the communication with the Google Analytics Data API. Then your Angular app can send a request to this endpoint and handle the response.
The process would look like this: Angular component makes a HTTP request to your new Node.js endpoint -> Node.js endpoint communicates with Google Analytics Data API and gets the result -> Node.js endpoint sends back the result to Angular component -> Angular component uses this data to show statistics.
This way, you can call the Google Analytics in Node and send the results of that call back to your frontend. It also addresses any issues of exposing sensitive credentials on your client side by keeping your Google API key server-side.
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Since you are dealing with an Angular application, using the Node.js Google Analytics Data API client library directly may not be the best approach. This library is designed for server-side JavaScript not client-side. Hence, the issue with webpack and Angular may arise.
Consider creating a backend API service in Node.js where you can safely utilize your Google Analytics Data API client library. This server-side function can call the Google Analytics API and return the processed data.
From your Angular app, make HTTP requests to this backend service to fetch the data. This approach can streamline the process and help you bypass the issue of incorporating Node.js libraries directly into Angular. It will also abstract the Google API away, ensuring your client-side app only needs to utilise HTTP requests and your app can be decoupled from the Google API somewhat. You would receive the response data from the HTTP request in a promise, and you can then process and display that data within your Angular components.
This approach is also more secure, as the application credentials used for Google Analytics will not be exposed on the client side(but rather on the server side where it’s much safer). The server-side API service will communicate with Google Analytics and can return the data you need in a format that’s best for your Angular app to consume.
Remember to set up CORS properly on your server-side API to allow your Angular application to fetch the data.
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