App open event is returning a string of arguments instead of an array (like App.argv)

[ConcurrentHashMap]

As described here, the open event for gui.App will return the full command line of the second call.

I tried to parse the commandline, but experienced a strange behavior:

// Using 'open' event listener
gui.App.on('open', function(cmdline) {
  console.log('command line: ' + cmdline[1]);
  console.log(typeof cmdline);
  // called with nw.exe --some-test-parameter
  // output: 
  // 'command line: w'
  // string
});

So, this seems to return a string, which can't be accessed directly.
In contrast, let's try the equal thing with gui.App.argv:

// Using gui.App.argv
  console.log(gui.App.argv[1]);
  console.log(typeof gui.App.argv);
  // called with nw.exe --some-test-parameter
  // output: 
  // 'command line: --some-test-parameter'
  // object
});

To be more in line with gui.App.argv (which does return an array object), I would suggest, that the open event should also return an array instead of a string, which makes absolutely sense in my opinion, because a string isn't directly usable without further parsing.

Tested with current v0.10.0-rc1 on Windows.

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[nwjs-bot]

This should be working with latest version now.

In 0.13 we changed to an optimized architecture so more features can be supported, see http://nwjs.io/blog/whats-new-in-0.13/ and it's good for keeping up with Chromium upstream -- we released with Node.js v6.0 and new Chromium versions within 1 day after upstream release.

The new version would fixed many issues reported here and we're scrubbing them. This issue is closed as we believe it should be fixed. Please leave a message if it isn't and we'll reopen it.

[mauvilsa]

This issue has not been resolved yet, so I would say it should be reopened.

In the documentation (http://docs.nwjs.io/en/latest/References/App/#event-openargs) it does say that the open event returns an string, but I agree this is not too useful. In a test I did in OS X, this string included "--user-data-dir=... --no-sandbox --flag-switches-begin --flag-switches-end --nwapp=...', so parsing it is not as simple as splitting the string. Maybe you could add a function for parsing the args string, so that it gets filtered and is returned as an array analogous to App.argv.

[ghostoy]

@mauvilsa I have PRs for sending original command line parameters as a string to App.open event. So it will be compatible with previous versions of NW.js. And it will be easy to parse the parameters with some libraries or write your own.

[jonwwilkes]

@mauvilsa Not sure I understand the response. After the PR gets merged, will the argument to App.open be a string or an array?

Also, I just started using the "open" event so I don't know what the backwards-compatibility entails. For example, currently the nw.js app bundle "open" argv string is a "file://" uri with the path of the file that was clicked. Will your PR change that?

[ghostoy]

It will still be a string to be backward compatible with previous versions.

For example, if you start a second instance with nw --foo bar, the args you get is path/to/nw --foo bar, which is the same as 0.12 or earlier versions.