Broken on npm 6.6.0

[Abrahamic-God]

Hello again! 👋

It seems that npm 6.6.0 has some incompatibility with bower-npm-resolver. Here's the error output I receive:

bower nodecg-obs-scene#^4.0.0                                             error Cannot convert undefined or null to object
Stack trace:
TypeError: Cannot convert undefined or null to object
    at Function.keys (<anonymous>)
    at getLastKey (C:\projects\nodecg-starcraft\node_modules\bower-npm-resolver\dist\npm-utils.js:255:21)
    at C:\projects\nodecg-starcraft\node_modules\bower-npm-resolver\dist\npm-utils.js:284:31
    at _fulfilled (C:\projects\nodecg-starcraft\node_modules\q\q.js:854:54)
    at self.promiseDispatch.done (C:\projects\nodecg-starcraft\node_modules\q\q.js:883:30)
    at Promise.promise.promiseDispatch (C:\projects\nodecg-starcraft\node_modules\q\q.js:816:13)
    at C:\projects\nodecg-starcraft\node_modules\q\q.js:624:44
    at runSingle (C:\projects\nodecg-starcraft\node_modules\q\q.js:137:13)
    at flush (C:\projects\nodecg-starcraft\node_modules\q\q.js:125:13)
    at _combinedTickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:132:7)
    at process._tickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:181:9)
Console trace:
Error
    at StandardRenderer.error (C:\Users\appveyor\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\bower\lib\renderers\StandardRenderer.js:88:37)
    at Logger.<anonymous> (C:\Users\appveyor\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\bower\lib\bin\bower.js:113:30)
    at emitOne (events.js:116:13)
    at Logger.emit (events.js:211:7)
    at Logger.emit (C:\Users\appveyor\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\bower\lib\node_modules\bower-logger\lib\Logger.js:29:39)
    at C:\Users\appveyor\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\bower\lib\commands\index.js:49:24
    at _rejected (C:\Users\appveyor\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\bower\lib\node_modules\q\q.js:864:24)
    at C:\Users\appveyor\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\bower\lib\node_modules\q\q.js:890:30
    at Promise.when (C:\Users\appveyor\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\bower\lib\node_modules\q\q.js:1142:31)
    at Promise.promise.promiseDispatch (C:\Users\appveyor\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\bower\lib\node_modules\q\q.js:808:41)
    at C:\Users\appveyor\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\bower\lib\node_modules\q\q.js:624:44
    at runSingle (C:\Users\appveyor\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\bower\lib\node_modules\q\q.js:137:13)
    at flush (C:\Users\appveyor\AppData\Roaming\npm\node_modules\bower\lib\node_modules\q\q.js:125:13)
    at _combinedTickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:132:7)
    at process._tickCallback (internal/process/next_tick.js:181:9)
System info:
Bower version: 1.8.7
Node version: 8.12.0
OS: Windows_NT 10.0.14393 x64
Command exited with code 1

[mjeanroy]

Hi @lange,
Sorry for the delay, do you have a reproducible test case available?
Thanks for the report (and many thanks for the system info!).

[dsechin]

Hi @mjeanroy I was able to reproduce the same error while trying to install npm:simplebar#3.1.0-beta.3.

I've looked at the trace & modified execViewCommand inside npm-utils.js slightly (console.log):

function execViewCommand(args) {
  return execNpm(function (meta, deferred) {
    npm.commands.view(args, true, function (err, data) {
      console.log(args, err, data);
      if (err) {
        deferred.reject(err);
      } else {
        deferred.resolve(data);
      }
    });
  });
}

For npm >= 6.6.0 if the second argument passed to the npm.commands.view
is true (silent run) -- err === null & data === undefined, but if it is false everything works ok.

I don't know what changes in the npm cause this.

[mjeanroy]

Hi,

Thanks @dsechin, you're right: when silent parameter is false, everything works fine (but we get a dirty message to the console...). This is due to the fact that, starting with npm 6.6.0, when silent is true, nothing is returned by the view command (you can see it here: https://github.com/npm/cli/blob/bb8688d5aba998bcdbcd33ee0508dad8a9ec2278/lib/view.js#L187).

For me, it looks like a bug in npm cli, I posted a message to the support forum to understand, you can see it here: https://npm.community/t/cannot-use-npm-view-command-programmatically/5455.

I'm still thinking how to fix this, for now I don't have a better idea than switching silent flag to false.

[mjeanroy]

@dsechin @lange It should have been fixed with version 0.10.0. Please, let me know if something does not work ;)