aws-cdk-cli: CDK fails if node executable has a space in the path

[zastrowm]

Describe the bug

The CDK fails to execute any command that uses a sub-process when the node executable has a space in its path. The error is non-obvious as to the cause.

Expected Behavior

The CDK commands should work the same whether or not the node executable has a space in its path.

Current Behavior

A seemingly random error occurs running cdk commands:

❯ npm run release-synthesize
> cdk synthesize --output dist/cdk.out --app dist/src/resources/index.js

/bin/sh: /Users/{username}/Library/Application: No such file or directory
Error: Subprocess exited with error 127
    at ChildProcess.<anonymous> (/{path}/node_modules/aws-cdk/lib/api/cxapp/exec.ts:132:9)
    at ChildProcess.emit (node:events:517:28)
    at ChildProcess.emit (node:domain:489:12)
    at Process.ChildProcess._handle.onexit (node:internal/child_process:292:12)

Reproduction Steps

• Put node somewhere with a space in the path
• Then using that version of node in your path, execute the cdk command.

On MacOS I use FNM as my node module and this was my node path:

/Users/{UserName}/Library/Application Support/fnm/node-versions/v18.18.2/installation/bin/node dist/src/resources/index.js

Possible Solution

This seems to be caused by the line where the commandLine params are joined:

await exec(commandLine.join(' '));

I monkey-patched my local CDK install to quote values which have a space in them:

Tip

it's worth noting that the exec.js may not be the file to fix this in - I needed to modify index.js instead

await exec(commandLine.map(it => it.includes(" ") ? `"${it}"` : it).join(' '));

which allowed all my CDK commands to execute successfully and without errors.

Additional Information/Context

This took me a while to debug because I had no context as to what sub-process was failing. Immediately above the line there is some logging of the environment in debug mode - I'd suggest also emitting the path to the command line as well before calling exec; that would have at least alerted me to the fact that it was a node problem.

CDK CLI Version

2.32.1 (build 79cbe95)

Framework Version

No response

Node.js Version

v18.18.2

OS

MacOS

Language

TypeScript

Language Version

No response

Other information

No response

[pahud]

Thank you for the report. Yes I think we should fix it.

[albertothedev]

I have a similar error.

[vinayak-kukreja]

Hey, thank you for reporting this issue.

This issue as mentioned is being caused by a space being present in the path for node executable. Looking at node github repository issues, it looks like this is a known issue with how node handles spaces in paths. And for CDK, this occurs here.

We currently do not have any plans to fix this on our end. Our recommendation for a workaround here would be to install node at a path which does not have spaces in it.

[github-actions]

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