use_node doesn't work at all

[zaro]

Recently upgraded my direnv , and now every .envrc I used that has use_node stopped working with :

direnv: Unable to find NodeJS version (v8.9.1) in (/Users/me/.nvm/versions/node/)!
direnv: error exit status 1

After debugging a bit found that the problem is here :

563   node_prefix=$(
564     # Look for matching node versions in $NODE_VERSIONS path
565     find "$NODE_VERSIONS" -maxdepth 1 -mindepth 1 -type d -name "$node_wanted*" |
566
567     # Strip possible "/" suffix from $NODE_VERSIONS, then use that to
568     # Strip $NODE_VERSIONS/$NODE_VERSION_PREFIX prefix from line.
569     while IFS= read -r line; do echo "${line#${NODE_VERSIONS%!/(MISSING)}/${node_version_prefix}}"; done |
570
571     # Sort by version: split by "." then reverse numeric sort for each piece of the version string
572     sort -t . -k 1,1rn -k 2,2rn -k 3,3rn |
573
574     # The first one is the highest
575     head -1
576   )

specifically

while IFS= read -r line; do echo "${line#${NODE_VERSIONS%!/(MISSING)}/${node_version_prefix}}"; 

No matter what settings I have, the ${line#...} expansion always fails, and leaves line as absolute path. Here are some experiments in the command line:

$ export NODE_VERSIONS=/Users/me/.nvm/versions/node/
$ export node_version_prefix=v
$ echo '/Users/me/.nvm/versions/node/v8.9.1' |  while IFS= read -r line; do echo "${line#${NODE_VERSIONS%/(MISSING)}/${node_version_prefix}}"; done
/Users/me/.nvm/versions/node/v8.9.1
$ echo '/Users/me/.nvm/versions/node/v8.9.1' |  while IFS= read -r line; do echo "${line#${NODE_VERSIONS%/(MISSING)}/}"; done
/Users/me/.nvm/versions/node/v8.9.1
$ echo '/Users/me/.nvm/versions/node/v8.9.1' |  while IFS= read -r line; do echo "${line#${NODE_VERSIONS%/(MISSING)}}"; done
v8.9.1

I have removed the ! before (MISSING) because it expands in interactive console. But what you can see is that

"${line#${NODE_VERSIONS%/(MISSING)}/${node_version_prefix}}"
"${line#${NODE_VERSIONS%/(MISSING)}/}"

Do not trigger expansion correctly while

"${line#${NODE_VERSIONS%/(MISSING)}}"

does. I observe the same behaviour on both macOs/bash-3.2 and ubuntu/bash-4.3 .

[zaro]

What I found as a workaround for me is to copy the current use_node definition from direnv stdlib , and add it to ~/.config/direnv/direnvrc with

 node_prefix="${NODE_VERSIONS}/${node_version_prefix}${node_prefix}"

line commented.

[zimbatm]

/cc @f440 @mdawaffe and @wilmoore who worked on that specific function

[wilmoore]

Somehow, I did not get the ping @zimbatm. I found this issue just searching around the issue tracker.

@zaro - what's your $SHELL?

[steve-ross]

I am working on some additional helpers to use direnv with some of our internal projects. We do a lot of node and typically we use NVM to manage versions. Anyway... I finally put it in a repo yesterday. I'm sure linking to this will show how pitiful my bash skills are however, you can find it here if anyone is interested: https://github.com/steve-ross/direnv-helpers

enables you to put stuff like:
requires_nvm in your projects .envrc
Which then reads your .nvmrc file, installs the required node version via NVM if it is missing, runs npm install (if there isn't a node_modules), does a use node etc

[wilmoore]

I dig the __prompt_install_nvm hooks. I wonder if the idea could be further extended to just handle the node binary installation directly without installing an installer?

I don't have enough free time to explore this much further ATM, but ultimately, direnv has enough tooling to negate the need to support X number of installers (i.e. nvm, n, ...).

If kept to basic sh scripting, one would need only install direnv and create an .envrc. to have a working Node.js environment.

[steve-ross]

@wilmoore yeah, I totally get that. Our main reason for creating some of these helpers was that we didn't want to have to copy/paste modify configs for the multiple node projects we work on. It also helps us spin up new developers very quickly.

[speed-of-light]

this is what worked for me

export NODE_VERSIONS=~/.nvm/versions/node
export NODE_VERSION_PREFIX='v'
use node 10.4

direnv version
2.16.0

[MemoryReload]

@speed-of-light Yeah, you really save my ass buddy! The use_node() function in stdlib.sh need these environment variables and the default settings are not right. So we must fix this by ourselves
. Thanks again!

[ustun]

Wanted to mention volta as an alternative way to pin node versions in projects(actually it is an alternative to nvm): https://docs.volta.sh/guide/

[segunadebayo]

Managed to get this working Volta:

volta install node (grabs the latest version)
export NODE_VERSIONS=~/.volta/tools/image/node/
export NODE_VERSION_PREFIX=''
use node <latest version>

[lee-pai-long]

This is not working for me still in direnv version 2.32.3.

I set the NODE_VERSIONS correctly and the NODE_VERSION_PREFIX to 'v'. I use the .node-version file and put the exact version installed in it without the 'v'.
When direnv executes it fails with the error:

Unable to find NodeJS version (20.3.0) in (/home/sma/.nvm/versions/node)!

But using ls in /home/sma/.nvm/versions/node shows that there is a v20.3.0 directory. Looking at the use_node method in stdlib.sh file, it seems like the value of the version directory path computated is wrong, but it not shown in the error message so I can't debug it.

The workaround I found was to use the load_prefix function directly like this:

load_prefix $HOME/.nvm/versions/node/v$(cat ./.node-version)

The only caveat is that one need to set the exact version number for it to work.

[lestephane]

This line looks extremely suspicious:

use_node() {
...
  local node_version_prefix=${NODE_VERSION_PREFIX-node-v}

Specifying NODE_VERSION_PREFIX will NOT work in bash (which the shebang says the stdlib is written in).

The proper syntax is ${NODE_VERSION_PREFIX:-node-v} for bash.