Added ability to run interactively with arguments

[redchair123]

There currently is no way to run node interactively and pass arguments without
a file: node -i foo bar baz will instruct node to load foo.

This commit adds a -- argument that instructs node to run interactive and not
to load any file in the argv:

$ node -i -- foo bar baz
> process.argv
[ '/the/path/to/node',
  '--',
  'foo',
  'bar',
  'baz' ]

The same thing works without the '-i':

$ node -- foo bar baz
> process.argv
[ '/the/path/to/node',
  '--',
  'foo',
  'bar',
  'baz' ]

[bnoordhuis]

Have you run make test? I would expect this to break some of them.

Talking about tests, this PR needs one.

[redchair123]

actually it didn't fail any of the tests from make test, but it did fail linting (though you already pointed that out)

[redchair123]

@bnoordhuis i updated the PR with code that satisfies the linter (a few space and string-constant issues). Both the original and this version pass all tests. I couldn't find a test in which you controlled the actual arguments passed to the test (looking in the files in the test/ directory). Could you point me to one so that I can craft a relevant test?

[isaacs]

@Niggler Make a test that calls node using child_process.spawn() with whatever args, and then write to child.stdin, and verify the stdout and stderr output.

[bnoordhuis]

@Niggler Maybe test/simple/test-cli-eval.js?

[redchair123]

@isaacs @bnoordhuis I have added a few tests to verify that -- is passed along as the script name and that -i -- runs without trying to look for a script.

[isaacs]

Why not just always run interactively with -i? Do we really need -- at all?

On Sunday, March 17, 2013, Niggler wrote:

@isaacs https://github.com/isaacs @bnoordhuishttps://github.com/bnoordhuisI have added a few tests to verify that
-- is passed along as the script name and that -i -- runs without trying
to look for a script.

—
Reply to this email directly or view it on GitHubhttps://github.com//pull/5041#issuecomment-15026373
.

[redchair123]

@isaacs with your blessing there'll be a patch, but what I'd like to see node -i do is something like python's python -i mode: try to run the file and return control to the user when it finishes.

[redchair123]

@isaacs to explain that point further:

$ cat test.js
x=3
$ node -i test.js
> x
3

(that's not what happens now, but that's what I think node -i should do)

[bnoordhuis]

Whitespace errors but nothing that git am --whitespace=fix can't deal with. LGTM, tests pass and I'm +1 on the feature. Should be safe to land in v0.10, I think?

[isaacs]

Discussed in IRC. Bottom line:

This is a pretty good start. But I'd rather just go whole-hog here, and do the whole thing in 0.12, rather than have a piecemeal fix where we use -- and -i and they do basically the same thing.

Strategy:

• -i means "Always run a repl". If a filename is provided, then the file is executed in the repl context prior to the first prompt.
• - as the filename means "stdin".

1. node -i foo.js bar Runs foo.js in the repl context, then starts a repl. argv = node foo.js bar
2. node - foo.js bar Does not run a file. Loads the repl if stdin is a TTY. argv = node - foo.js bar
3. node -i - foo.js bar Does not run a file. Loads the repl. argv = node - foo.js bar
4. echo $program | node -i foo.js bar Load foo.js, and run it in the repl context. Then start the repl. (Note: whatever part of $program that foo.js didn't read will get dumped there as the repl input.) argv = node foo.js bar
5. echo $program | node - foo.js bar Does not run a file. Reads $program and runs it. argv = node - foo.js bar
6. echo $program | node -i - foo.js bar Does not run a file. Dumps $program into the repl. argv = node - foo.js bar

@Niggler For this pull req, can you review your approach and see if it still makes sense as a partial solution?

[jasnell]

Closing due to lack of activity. Can revisit if someone is interested in updating the PR. Given that this is a feature request, however, it would need to be targeted at either http://github.com/nodejs/io.js or http://github.com/nodejs/node