Watch not working on paths with overlap

[richardsimko]

Version

v23.9.0

Platform

Darwin Mac 24.3.0 Darwin Kernel Version 24.3.0: Thu Jan  2 20:24:22 PST 2025; root:xnu-11215.81.4~3/RELEASE_ARM64_T6041 arm64

Subsystem

--watch

What steps will reproduce the bug?

app-foobar/app-foobar.js This is the entrypoint:

import { Server } from "http";
import { test2 } from "../app/test.js";
const port = process.env.PORT || "5002";

async function init() {
  console.log(test2);
  // Server just to keep the process alive
  const server = new Server();
  server.listen(port);
  server.on("listening", () =>
    console.info("Server listening on port " + port)
  );
}

void init();

app/test.js

export class Test {
  constructor() {
    console.log("Test");
  }
}

export const test2 = new Test();

1. Create the files (Or checkout https://github.com/richardsimko/node-watch-bug)
2. Run the files using node --watch --watch-preserve-output app-foobar/app-foobar.js
3. Make a change to app-foobar/app-foobar.js

A complete repo with everything set up to test: https://github.com/richardsimko/node-watch-bug

How often does it reproduce? Is there a required condition?

It happens every time a path "overlaps" with another, for example:

foo/ and foo-bar/
app/ and app-foo/

What is the expected behavior? Why is that the expected behavior?

The watcher works for all files imported.

What do you see instead?

The watcher doesn't work for files which have an overlap with other files, in the example, changes to app-foobar/app-foobar.js don't trigger a restart but changes to app/test.js does.

Additional information

No response

[bjohansebas]

You are free to submit PRs, there's no need to ask to be assigned an issue, this is open source

[richardsimko]

#57425 seems to be in progress to resolve this already