Paths set in NODE_PATH are not available in the browser process

[probablycorey]

I'm trying to move the classes in main.coffee into multiple files, but the browser process's require doesn't know about the paths set on NODE_PATH. This even fails when the first thing main.coffee does is set the NODE_PATH env variable.

[zcbenz]

When the main.coffee is loaded, the NODE_PATH has already been read and stored by the module system, so subsequent modifications to NODE_PATH won't have any effect on current script.

To modify the module's search paths in main.coffee, you should append the paths to require('module').globalPaths:

require('module').globalPaths.push(searchPath);

This feature (modify the search paths after script is loaded) is atom-shell only, I'll document it.

[probablycorey]

Do you think we should use module.globalPaths instead of NODE_PATH for everything? It would be more consistent, but are there are downsides?

[zcbenz]

module.globalPaths does not work in the renderer, because of a hack that forcing module code to be evaluated under window context.

[probablycorey]

I can't get module.globalPaths to work in the browser process.

I run this code in main.coffee

  console.log require('module').globalPaths
  require('module').globalPaths.push(resourcePath + "/src/app")
  console.log require('module').globalPaths
  require('point')

And this is the output

[ '/Users/corey/.node_modules',
  '/Users/corey/.node_libraries',
  '/Applications/Atom.app/Contents/lib/node',
  '/Applications/Atom.app/Contents/Resources/browser/api/lib',
  '/Applications/Atom.app/Contents/Resources/common/api/lib' ]
[ '/Users/corey/.node_modules',
  '/Users/corey/.node_libraries',
  '/Applications/Atom.app/Contents/lib/node',
  '/Applications/Atom.app/Contents/Resources/browser/api/lib',
  '/Applications/Atom.app/Contents/Resources/common/api/lib',
  '/Users/corey/github/atom/src/app' ]
uncaughtException:
Error: Cannot find module 'point'
    at Function.Module._resolveFilename (module.js:351:15)
    at Function.Module._load (module.js:293:25)
    at Module.require (module.js:377:17)
    at require (module.js:393:17)
    at Object.bootstrapApplication [as preMainMessageLoopRun] (/Applications/Atom.app/Contents/Resources/app/src/main.js:76:12)

[zcbenz]

The ~/github/atom only contains .coffee sources, so you have to require coffee-script:

require('coffee-script')
require('coffee-cache').setCacheDir('/tmp/atom-coffee-cache')
require('module').globalPaths.push(resourcePath + "/src/app")
require('point')

[probablycorey]

Ahh, thanks!

[release-notifier]

This PR landed in electron v1.7.12 🎉