tsc command not working in 3.2.1 - Expected identifier

[blfuentes]

TypeScript Version: 3.2.1

Search Terms: Expected identifier

Code

// Start a command line and just write tsc or tsc -v

Expected behavior: display the current version or the info

Actual behavior: It raises a Windows Script Host error (check image)

I checked the installation folder and there is just a tsc.js file. The tsc.exe is missing
The npm works fine. It is the TypeScript_SDK.exe for VS 2017 what fails.

Playground Link:

Related Issues:
SO: Windows 10 1809 10.0.17763.107

[weswigham]

We stopped shipping tsc.exe in the SDK AFAIK - @minestarks ?

[minestarks]

Yes we removed tsc.exe in 3.2 so this exact method of invocation wouldn’t work anymore. A command like node.exe full_path_to_tsc.js would work.

What is your exact scenario and goal here? We may need to update some docs depending on what you’re trying to achieve.

[blfuentes]

Yes we removed tsc.exe in 3.2 so this exact method of invocation wouldn’t work anymore. A command like “node.exe full_path_to_tsc.js” would work.

What is your exact scenario and goal here? We may need to update some docs depending on what you’re trying to achieve.

Thanks for the info.
I was just trying to check wether the PATH was pointing to the correct folder or not. So this "issue" is not something that blocks any kind of project I am doing at the moment.

[minestarks]

Come to think of it, given that there's no executable on the %PATH% anymore, I wonder if we should stop adding ourselves to the path too.

[pushkin-]

Our applications relied on tsc.exe being shipping with the SDK, and this is a pretty big breaking change for us. Can we not run tsc now without installing Node? If so, we're hoping for a slimmed-down version that doesn't require us to install Node and all of its node modules...

[minestarks]

You can download node.exe as a standalone executable from https://nodejs.org/ - it doesn't have any dependencies.

@pushkin- Can you tell me more about your build setup and any drawbacks to the switchover? I'd like to understand it more so we can add it to our considerations in the future

[pushkin-]

@minestarks Well, node ships with npm, which has various node dependencies (the nodejs folder is about 50 MB on my machine).

Also, it looks like VS2017 ships with node? I found one here: "C:\Program Files (x86)\Microsoft Visual Studio\2017\Professional\Common7\ServiceHub\Hosts\ServiceHub.Host.Node.x86"

Can we just use that node.exe, instead of installing another one?

Well, this might not be as big of a deal as I thought. Mainly we have a tool that searches for tsc.exe and transpiles our TS files with various arguments. Can we just pass those same arguments to tsc.js and it'll work as before, or no?

[pushkin-]

@minestarks Is there some documentation on how to migrate from the old tsc.exe --args command to node.exe tsc.js --args command?

[minestarks]

node.exe tsc.js should be equivalent to tsc.exe so you can pass the same arguments to either.

This would be a good thing to document properly. We'll work on it.

VS2017 does include node.js - and the one at MSBuild\Microsoft\VisualStudio\NodeJs\node.exe is automatically used when you are using MSBuild and our Nuget package / MSBuild targets to build. You can update your scripts to point to that one (the one you linked is used for other scenarios and I can't make guarantees about it). For the most seamless transition you'd want to be using the Nuget package to build, but it sounds like you have a more custom setup (I'm still interested to learn more details about it).

[pushkin-]

@minestarks I didn't find a NodeJs directory in my Program Files (x86)/MSBuild/Microsoft/VisualStudio. I did find node.exe in:

Program Files (x86)/Microsoft Visual Studio/2017/Professional/Web/External/Node.exe
(and in External/x86/Node.exe)

Are those suitable alternatives?

---

I have a tool that uses tsc.exe to generate declaration files for our namespaced-Typescript code.

[minestarks]

@pushkin- looks like you may be using an older version of VS? I say take the dependency at your own risk, when you upgrade VS you may lose those paths. I think your safest bet might be to get node.exe from https://nodejs.org/ and put it in a known location.

[pushkin-]

@minestarks Maybe I'll install my own Node then. Is there a particular version of Node that needs to be used? Is that documented anywhere by chance?