canirequire

canirequire › CommonJS › chardet

Is chardet ESM-only? Can you require() it?

Character encoding detector

Last verified Sep 9, 2026 against chardet@2.2.0. JSON

CommonJS CommonJS — require() works on every Node.js version

chardet ships CommonJS only. require("chardet") works everywhere. import "chardet" also works because Node.js and Bun can import CommonJS from ES modules, but only the default export is guaranteed; named imports depend on Node's static analysis of the module.

Latest
2.2.0 (Jun 20, 2026)
Module format
CommonJS
Last CommonJS version
2.2.0
TypeScript types
Bundled
Node engines
not declared
Weekly downloads
53.9M
License
MIT

Does chardet@2.2.0 actually load? Runtime test results

Installed and executed on Sep 9, 2026 with require("chardet") from a CommonJS file and import "chardet" from an ES module.

Runtimerequire("chardet")import "chardet"
Node.js 18✓ works✓ works
Node.js 20✓ works✓ works
Node.js 22✓ works✓ works
Node.js 24✓ works✓ works
Node.js 26✓ works✓ works
Bun 1.4✓ works✓ works

How to import chardet

ES modules (import)

import chardet from "chardet";

Named imports from a CommonJS package only work when Node.js can statically detect them. If a named import fails, use the default import and destructure.

CommonJS (require)

const chardet = require("chardet");

Module format by version

Derived from the type, main and exports fields of every stable release on npm (30 versions; the newest 30 shown).

VersionsFormatFirst published
0.0.3 – 2.2.0CommonJSApr 30, 2013

Frequently asked

Is chardet ESM-only?

chardet@2.2.0 is a CommonJS package. chardet ships CommonJS only. require("chardet") works everywhere. import "chardet" also works because Node.js and Bun can import CommonJS from ES modules, but only the default export is guaranteed; named imports depend on Node's static analysis of the module.

Can I import chardet with ES module syntax?

Yes. import chardet from "chardet" works in Node.js and Bun because they support importing CommonJS modules. Named imports work only when Node.js can statically detect the exports.

Does chardet work in Bun?

Yes. import "chardet" loaded successfully in Bun 1.4 on Sep 9, 2026.

Does chardet ship TypeScript types?

Yes. chardet bundles its own type declarations; no @types package is needed.

Links

Other commonjs packages

Similar popularity