npm package opens cli.js file instead of executing cli.js with node

[Thomas-Gallant]

First, I want to say that I am really happy I found this library! I am surprised that it doesn't have more stars. Being able to benchmark Javascript code on different platforms is really great, and I was having trouble finding any tools that would do that. (I was worried I would have to try to build my own). Tachometer is another option but it only supports web browsers and requires all Javascript code to be within HTML files.

summary

When I try to run npm run benchmark on Windows after following the getting started instructions, the cli.js file is opened in my IDE instead of being executed.

I discovered that the npm documentation says the following:

Please make sure that your file(s) referenced in bin starts with #!/usr/bin/env node; otherwise, the scripts are started without the node executable!

I checked how some other libraries do it, and they add the above annotation in their bin files.

Typescript example:

#!/usr/bin/env node
require('../lib/tsc.js')

workaround

I am using the command node node_modules\esbench\lib\host\cli.js to bypass the npm shim to call the package directly.

additional details

npm uses cmd-shim to generate a esbench.cmd file inside of node_modules/.bin. Below is a comparison of the generated files for esbench vs typescript:

esbench.cmd

@ECHO off
GOTO start
:find_dp0
SET dp0=%~dp0
EXIT /b
:start
SETLOCAL
CALL :find_dp0
"%dp0%\..\esbench\lib\host\cli.js"   %*

tsc.cmd

@ECHO off
GOTO start
:find_dp0
SET dp0=%~dp0
EXIT /b
:start
SETLOCAL
CALL :find_dp0

IF EXIST "%dp0%\node.exe" (
  SET "_prog=%dp0%\node.exe"
) ELSE (
  SET "_prog=node"
  SET PATHEXT=%PATHEXT:;.JS;=;%
)

endLocal & goto #_undefined_# 2>NUL || title %COMSPEC% & "%_prog%"  "%dp0%\..\typescript\bin\tsc" %*

[Kaciras]

I'm glad to hear that this library is helping you solve the cross-platform benchmarking challenges.

I primarily use pnpm which handles binary shims differently, so I didn't catch this behavior with npm.

Thank you for the detailed investigation, I have just released v0.8.1 include the fix.

[Thomas-Gallant]

Awesome, I have updated to 0.8.1 and npm run benchmark is now working!

Below is the new generated shim

@ECHO off
GOTO start
:find_dp0
SET dp0=%~dp0
EXIT /b
:start
SETLOCAL
CALL :find_dp0

IF EXIST "%dp0%\node.exe" (
  SET "_prog=%dp0%\node.exe"
) ELSE (
  SET "_prog=node"
  SET PATHEXT=%PATHEXT:;.JS;=;%
)

endLocal & goto #_undefined_# 2>NUL || title %COMSPEC% & "%_prog%"  "%dp0%\..\esbench\lib\host\cli.js" %*