yargs not passing string correctly

[hisabimbola]

describe('TokenizeArgString', function () {
  it.only('....handles quoted string', function () {
    var args = tokenizeArgString('-q sku="invalid"')
    args[0].should.equal('-q') // passes
    args[1].should.equal('sku="invalid"') //fails
  })
})

This test fails on this module. Not sure how to fix it.

[bcoe]

@hisabimbola good catch; looks like somewhere in the parsing process we drop the ", this is definitely a bug. If you get a chance to dig into this yourself, would happily accept a patch. Either way, will definitely try to get this fixed soon.

[bcoe]

@hisabimbola @antoniom unfortunately, I thought of a couple edge-cases where the logic for handling quoted strings would break the parse. Specifically if you had a boolean argument configured, followed by a string:

-f "hello world" in this scenario, if -f is configured as a boolean, you would end up with "hello world" in your _ -- which is unexpected behavior and would put the burden of more parsing on the consumer.

I think we should leave this behavior as is, i.e., eating ' and " -- this is the default behavior of the operating system:

 node test.js -f "world-hello"

will result in the following process.argv:

[ '/Users/benjamincoe/.nvm/versions/node/v7.1.0/bin/node',
  '/Users/benjamincoe/bcoe/yargs/test.js',
  '-f',
  'world-hello' ]

so even if we do add this parsing feature to yargs-parser the operating system will eat the quotes before they get to the parser.

perhaps start a conversation in our community slack and we can discuss other potential solutions to the problem -- perhaps you could JSON encode the data being passed in?

[antoniom]

@bcoe Since this is the default behavior from OS side, its OK for me. Feel free to revert it.

[ilatypov]

Passing an undefined variable as args to the parser (which happens a mistake in the parser's caller) throws a cryptic message, Should this create another issue?

TypeError: Cannot read property 'match' of undefined

[bcoe]

@ilatypov 👍 yeah, would appreciate it if you create an issue specifically related to this.

[malhotraashna]

@bcoe Can I please ask you to again have a look at the case for allowing strings with quotes to be passed? It becomes very important to have it when string with spaces need to be passed.

Consider this scenario
./nodeFile.js -n "my node module"

If I don't use double-quotes with my string, then the OS itself will consider the first word as the argument value. But it doesn't strips them out itself. This comment explains it better.

I completely understand your concern when random string is passed after boolean arguments. But I guess passing string with spaces is a very common case too. And if possible, if the option has type specified as string, at least allow the double-quotes then?

[bcoe]

@malhotraashna please open a new issue with an example of a reproduction in test if possible.