Git style commands and different than module name bin command issue

[jarrodek]

I have the following setup:

NPM module name: api-console-cli
Registered in package.json command: api-console

  "bin": {
    "api-console": "bin/api-console-cli.js"
  }

and the following error when trying to run the program on Windows:

C:\workspace\api-console-cli>api-console dev --help
module.js:491
    throw err;
    ^

Error: Cannot find module 'C:\workspace\api-console-cli\api-console-cli-dev'
    at Function.Module._resolveFilename (module.js:489:15)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:439:25)
    at Function.Module.runMain (module.js:609:10)
    at startup (bootstrap_node.js:158:16)
    at bootstrap_node.js:578:3

Under Linux and Mac it works when the sub-command file is located in ./bin/api-console-dev.js. Windows throws an error which can be fixed by creating the ./bin/api-console-cli-dev.js. This file contains a require of the original file.

Apparently on windows commander ignores that the actual CLI command is different than the npm module name. It should request one file only on all platforms.

You can find the source code here: https://github.com/mulesoft-labs/api-console-cli

[patrickmcelwee]

I ran into this on Windows 7 as well, but my package.json looks like this:

  "main": "index.js",
  "bin": {
    "muir": "./index.js"
  }

and the error when running muir new, for example, is looking for a file named index-new. If I run muir demo, it looks for index-demo

[shadowspawn]

.command now supports the executableFile option (thanks to @abetomo).
Shipped in v3: https://github.com/tj/commander.js/releases/tag/v3.0.0

[shadowspawn]

The cause is Commander is using the script from the command line (i.e. process.argv[1]) to find the base name for the subcommand. This leads to a range of behaviours.

On Mac process.argv[1] when using:

• node bin/api-console-cli.js has full path of local bin/api-console-cli.js
• api-console has full path of installed command symlink api-console

On Windows my-cli is a cmd launch script and not a symlink so process.argv[1] when using:

• node bin/api-console-cli.js has full path of local bin/api-console-cli.js
• api-console has full path of installed bin/api-console-cli.js

A slightly fragile but backwards compatible behaviour might be to look for both variations on Mac, so that bin/api-console-cli-dev.js would be found whether launched directly using node or through the command, on Mac and Windows.

[shadowspawn]

Previous issue and associated PR: #826 #830

Issue covering multiple causes but some related comments: #786

• (1) does not exist, try --help #786 (comment)
• (1) does not exist, try --help #786 (comment)

[shadowspawn]

PR to resolve this issue: #1571

[shadowspawn]

Commander v9 has been released.