Babel throwing Support for the experimental syntax 'jsx' isn't currently enabled

Question

I started newly writing unit test cases using Jest and Enzyme for the react application and when try to run test cases using jest like "test": "jest --watch" rather "test": "react-scripts test" tests going through babel for the runner to understand react syntax.

And have been doing setup step by step using babel but this error Support for the experimental syntax 'jsx' isn't currently enabled stopping me to go further. And as suggested in some threads I have been trying with npm install --save-dev @babel/plugin-transform-react-jsx and tried to add the same plugin into babel configuration like shown in below package.json file but still no luck.

And this is my package.json

{
  "name": "multitheme-app",
  "version": "0.1.0",
  "private": true,
  "dependencies": {
    "@material-ui/core": "^3.9.0",
    "@material-ui/icons": "^3.0.2",
    "axios": "^0.18.0",
    "babel-plugin-transform-export-extensions": "^6.22.0",
    "jest-css-modules": "^2.1.0",
    "react": "^16.8.1",
    "react-dom": "^16.8.1",
    "react-redux": "^6.0.0",
    "react-router-dom": "^4.3.1",
    "react-scripts": "2.1.5",
    "redux": "^4.0.1",
    "redux-thunk": "^2.3.0"
  },
  "scripts": {
    "start": "react-scripts start",
    "build": "react-scripts build",
    "test": "react-scripts test",
    "eject": "react-scripts eject"
  },
  "eslintConfig": {
    "extends": "react-app"
  },
  "browserslist": [
    ">0.2%",
    "not dead",
    "not ie <= 11",
    "not op_mini all"
  ],
  "babel": {
    "presets": [
      "@babel/preset-react",
      "@babel/preset-env",
      "@babel/preset-flow"
    ],
    "plugins": [
      "@babel/plugin-transform-modules-commonjs",
      "@babel/plugin-transform-react-jsx"
      
    ]
  },
  "devDependencies": {
    "@babel/cli": "^7.10.4",
    "@babel/core": "^7.10.4",
    "@babel/plugin-proposal-class-properties": "^7.10.4",
    "@babel/plugin-syntax-dynamic-import": "^7.8.3",
    "@babel/plugin-transform-modules-commonjs": "^7.10.4",
    "@babel/plugin-transform-react-jsx": "^7.10.4",
    "@babel/preset-env": "^7.10.4",
    "@babel/preset-es2015": "^7.0.0-beta.53",
    "@babel/preset-flow": "^7.10.4",
    "@babel/preset-react": "^7.10.4",
    "@babel/runtime": "^7.10.4",
    "babel-eslint": "^10.1.0",
    "babel-jest": "^26.1.0",
    "babel-loader": "^7.1.5",
    "babel-plugin-transform-decorators-legacy": "^1.3.5",
    "babel-preset-stage-0": "^6.24.1",
    "enzyme": "^3.11.0",
    "enzyme-adapter-react-16": "^1.15.2",
    "enzyme-to-json": "^3.5.0",
    "jest": "^23.6.0",
    "jest-cli": "^26.1.0"
  },
  "jest": {
    "verbose": true,
    "clearMocks": true,
    "collectCoverage": true,
    "setupTestFrameworkScriptFile": "<rootDir>/src/setupTest.js",
    "transform": {
      "^.+\\.js$": "babel-jest"
    },
    "moduleNameMapper": {
      "\\.(jpg|jpeg|png|gif|eot|otf|webp|svg|ttf|woff|woff2|mp4|webm|wav|mp3|m4a|aac|oga)$": "<rootDir>/__mocks__/fileMock.js",
      "\\.(css|scss)$": "identity-obj-proxy"
    }
  }
}

and here is my test case file

import React from 'react';
import Adapter from 'enzyme-adapter-react-16';
import { shallow, configure } from 'enzyme';

import App from './App';

configure({adapter: new Adapter()});


describe('MyComponent', () => {
  it('should render correctly in "debug" mode', () => {
    const component = shallow(<App debug />);
    expect(component).toMatchSnapshot();
  });
});

Abhor

Have you ejected your app? If not I don't think any of the additional config takes effect. You're not actually showing use of jest --watch in your package file, please give a proper minimal reproducible example. – Sylviasylviculture

@Sylviasylviculture sorry I didn't get this Have you ejected your app? sorry to say this I completely new to unit testing, can you please suggest me some code sample? – Abhor

Well if you're using react-scripts did you create your app using Create React App? And if so, did you run the eject command shown in your package file before starting to add random configuration of your own? – Sylviasylviculture

@Sylviasylviculture did you create your app using Create React App? - Yes, did you run the eject command shown in your package file before starting to add random configuration of your own? - No – Abhor

Then I'd recommend not trying to tinker with the setup unless you really know what you're doing, either stick with what's provided, fork to create your own or eject. – Sylviasylviculture

@jonrsharpe, thanks for your time and what I understand is use react-script as it is without touching babel and eject when don't have much idea what I am doing with different configurations like "test": "jest --watch" and few others which were not come at app creation time using CRA? – Abhor

@Venki You should always use Babel with Jest, at least for React testing because React app don't use valid JS. It's unclear why you started to use jest command instead of react-scripts. react-scripts test uses pre-configured Jest setup. If you really need to customize Jest, you need to eject, you'll be provided with Jest config that CRA uses and you can extend. Writing Jest config from scratch for complex setup like CRA isn't the most comfortable way to get started. – Baresark

@EstusFlask Thank you for your explanation. Now I understand a little about jest setup. – Abhor

Why downvote my question? – Abhor

Answer 1

If this issue is related to using jest,

jest config for your package.json should look like

with typescript -

"jest": {
    ...
    
    "transform": {
       "^.+\\.(ts|tsx|js|jsx)$": "ts-jest"
    },
    
    ...
}

with js -

"jest": {
    ...
    
    "transform": {
       "^.+\\.(js|jsx)$": "babel-jest"
    },
    
    ...
}

If you have a jest.config.js then this goes in there:

import type { Config } from 'jest'

const config: Config = {
  ...
  "transform": {
    "^.+\\.(ts|tsx|js|jsx)$": "ts-jest"
  }
  ....
}

export default config

Sojourn

I get an Module 'ts-jest' in the transform option was not found error. – Bobbybobbye

@Bobbybobbye install "ts-jest" – Jessjessa

could you give a more complete example on where to insert jest? doesn't work in sub-root level – Rata

Could you add an explanation of where this would go if your jest config is in a separate file like jest.config.ts? – Rutile

Answer 2

Adding my current solution as things constantly evolve.
I had a vanilla cra with jest and test dependencies

    "devDependencies": {
     "@babel/preset-env": "^7.14.9",
     "@testing-library/jest-dom": "^5.11.4",
     "@testing-library/react": "^11.1.0",
     "@testing-library/user-event": "^12.1.10",
     "jest": "^26.6.3"
  },

the solution was simple

• install yarn add @babel/preset-react

• then correctly setup babel.config.js

    module.exports = {
        presets: [
          '@babel/preset-react',
          [ 
            '@babel/preset-env',
            {
              targets: {
                node: 'current',
              },
            },
          ],
        ],
      };

• note
  in a .babelrc you use a different syntax for the presets array compared to the babel.config.js

Ofay

Tried some of the other suggestions, but they didn't work, this was the solution for me. – Bingo

Answer 3

Looking at the error it looks its not able to load the preset for react. Switch to the config file and move the configuration of babel from package.json to it. A sample file would look like below and will be located at the same level as package.json and called as babel.config.js

module.exports = function (api) {
  const presets = [
      '@babel/preset-env',
    '@babel/preset-react',
    '@babel/preset-flow'
  ];
  const plugins = [
    '@babel/plugin-transform-runtime',
  ];

  /** this is just for minimal working purposes,
     * for testing larger applications it is
     * advisable to cache the transpiled modules in
     * node_modules/.bin/.cache/@babel/register* */
  api.cache(false);

  return {
    presets,
    plugins
  };
};

Soche

Unfortunately, this isn't the case, the question is specific to Babel in Jest config. – Baresark

@Rain Yes, this is related babel config for react while using Jest. – Abhor

@EstusFlask, can you please teach me when to use & not use babel in Jest ? actually without using babel also test cases are passing successfully but with having some curiosity I just modified react-scripts to jest and then try to run npm test as suggested in udemey online course then started headache with babel. Can you please help with the above ask, Estus? – Abhor

Answer 4

I'm not sure if helps because for me wasn't related to jest. But I had the same error and after a lot of google I found this https://mcmap.net/q/122320/-support-for-the-experimental-syntax-39-classproperties-39-isn-39-t-currently-enabled

TL;DR you could be missing to set the babel/preset-react on webpack also:

rules: [
  {
    test: /\.(js|jsx)$/,
    exclude: /(node_modules|bower_components)/,
    loader: 'babel-loader',
    options: { presets: ['@babel/env', '@babel/preset-react'] },
  },

Sequent

I had the exact same issue, but my setup is a little bit trickier. Long short story, I'm using string-replace-loader to conditionally import components at build time. The issue was that I didn't had inside my webconfig.prod.config presets: ['@babel/env', '@babel/preset-react']. Thanks for pointing me in the right direction :D – Norine

Which file is the code from your answer located in? – Toothache

Answer 5

I fixed this by removing the builds/ folder which was created by npm run build on the same level as my package.json. After the removal I ran jest --coverage again and it worked. It can also have to do something with this.

Unruffled

Answer 6

If you are using a jest.config.js file with Webpack, one possible cause is the jest.config.js file needing to be in the root directory, same level as package.json.

Grating