Laravel Webpack - Unwanted minification of top level variable - laravel

Question

I have a variable in my main javascript file e.g. var example = {};.
After webpack has finished its job, I find that example is now referenced as t. This presents me a problem as I am using the variable across the web project. I bind functions onto objects for example:
var example = {};
example.initialise = function () {};
Finally at the bottom of a page I may invoke this section of script e.g:
<script>example.initialise()</script>
This way of writing javascript functions is not unusual...
This is obviously a huge pain in the ass as I have no control over the minification. Moreover, it appears that webpack doesn't figure out that example.initialise = function () {}; relates to its newly minified var example (becoming)--> var t. I.e. it doesn't become t.initialise = function {}; either.
What am I supposed to do here?
I've tried using rollup as well. The same kind of variable minification happens.
The thing is, this kind of minification/obfuscation is great, particularly on the inner workings of functions where there's little cause for concern over the parameter names. But not on the top level. I do not understand why this is happening, or how to prevent it.
Any ideas?
I assume that there are ways to set the configuration of webpack. E.g. inside webpack.config.js, but my perusing of the webpack docs gives me no easy understanding of what options I can use to resolve this, like preventing property minification in some way.

Answer 1

In laravel-elixir-webpack-official code you can see minify() is being applied here, minify() uses UglifyJS2 and mangling is on by default.
Mangling is an optimisation that reduces names of local variables and functions usually to single-letters (this explains your example object being renamed to t). See the doc here.
I don't see any way you can customize minify() behaviour in laravel-elixir-webpack, so for now you might have to monkey patch WebpackTask.prototype.gulpTask method before using the module (not an ideal solution). See the lines I am commenting out.
const WebpackTask = require('laravel-elixir-webpack-official/dist/WebpackTask').default;
WebpackTask.prototype.gulpTask = function () {
return (
gulp
.src(this.src.path)
.pipe(this.webpack())
.on('error', this.onError())
// .pipe(jsFiles)
// .pipe(this.minify())
// .on('error', this.onError())
// .pipe(jsFiles.restore)
.pipe(this.saveAs(gulp))
.pipe(this.onSuccess())
);
};

Answer 2

Turns out I have been silly. I've discovered that you can prevent top level properties from being minified by binding it to window... which in hindsight is something I've always known and was stupid not to have realised sooner. D'oh!
So all that needed to be done was to change all top-level properties like var example = {}; to something like window.app.example = {}; in which app is helping to namespace and prevent and override anything set by the language itself.