commander is outdated

[jtzero]

🐛 Bug Report

when I install a plugin meta can find the source of the plugin but not the bin.

To Reproduce

• docker container: docker run -it node:18-bullseye /bin/bash
• install meta globally: npm install -g meta
• install a plugin globally: npm install -g meta-search
• set debug: export DEBUG=*
• run command: meta search
• result: it will find the lib for meta-search yet not the bin

  root@8e6eb90be27e:/# meta search
  meta
  meta Resolving plugins: +0ms
  meta   /node_modules +1ms
  meta   /usr/local/lib/node_modules +283ms
  meta     + meta-bump +1ms
  meta     + meta-project +0ms
  meta     + meta-search +0ms
  meta
  meta Loading plugins: +0ms
  meta   + meta-bump /usr/local/lib/node_modules/meta-bump +0ms
  meta   + meta-project /usr/local/lib/node_modules/meta-project +1ms
  meta   + meta-search /usr/local/lib/node_modules/meta-search +1ms
  meta
  meta Loading core plugins: +3ms
  meta   + meta-git /usr/local/lib/node_modules/meta/node_modules/meta-git +0ms
  meta   + meta-init /usr/local/lib/node_modules/meta/node_modules/meta-init +1ms
  meta   + meta-loop /usr/local/lib/node_modules/meta/node_modules/meta-loop +41ms
  meta   + meta-project (skip) +42ms
  find-module-bin looking for meta-search at /node_modules/.bin/meta-search +0ms
  find-module-bin looking for meta-search at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/.bin/meta-search +0ms
  find-module-bin looking for meta-search at /usr/lib/node_modules/.bin/meta-search +0ms
  find-module-bin looking for meta-search at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/meta/bin/node_modules/.bin/meta-search +0ms
  find-module-bin looking for meta-search at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/meta/node_modules/.bin/meta-search +0ms
  find-module-bin looking for meta-search at /usr/local/node_modules/.bin/meta-search +0ms
  find-module-bin looking for meta-search at /usr/node_modules/.bin/meta-search +1ms
Error: could not find meta-search
    at findModuleBin (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/meta/node_modules/find-module-bin/lib/index.js:18:9)
    at Command.executeSubCommand (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/meta/node_modules/commander/index.js:552:11)
    at Command.parse (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/meta/node_modules/commander/index.js:489:17)
    at exports.run (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/meta/index.js:47:11)
    at Object.<anonymous> (/usr/local/lib/node_modules/meta/bin/meta:8:15)
    at Module._compile (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1112:14)
    at Module._extensions..js (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:1166:10)
    at Module.load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:988:32)
    at Module._load (node:internal/modules/cjs/loader:834:12)
    at Function.executeUserEntryPoint [as runMain] (node:internal/modules/run_main:77:12)

Expected behavior

• it should find npm-search bin file
• it should print out the usage same as when calling meta-search directly

resolve

because find-module-bin does not look for a bin dir within either npm prefix -g or npm bin -g the bin file for meta search isn't found

root@8e6eb90be27e:/# npm prefix -g
/usr/local
root@8e6eb90be27e:/# npm bin -g
/usr/local/bin
root@8e6eb90be27e:/# which meta-search
/usr/local/bin/meta-search

symlinking it into one of the dir's it is checking, resolves the issue

root@8e6eb90be27e:/usr/local/lib/node_modules/meta-search/bin# ln -nfs /usr/local/lib/node_modules/meta-search/bin/meta-search /usr/local/lib/node_modules/.bin/meta-search
root@8e6eb90be27e:/usr/local/lib/node_modules/meta-search/bin# meta search
  meta
  meta Resolving plugins: +0ms
  meta   /usr/local/lib/node_modules/meta-search/bin/node_modules +1ms
  meta   /usr/local/lib/node_modules/meta-search/node_modules +0ms
  meta   /usr/local/lib/node_modules/node_modules +1ms
  meta   /usr/local/lib/node_modules +1ms
  meta     + meta-bump +0ms
  meta     + meta-project +0ms
  meta     + meta-search +0ms
  meta   /usr/local/node_modules +0ms
  meta   /usr/node_modules +0ms
  meta   /node_modules +1ms
  meta   /usr/local/lib/node_modules +268ms
  meta     + meta-bump (skip) +0ms
  meta     + meta-project (skip) +0ms
  meta     + meta-search (skip) +0ms
  meta
  meta Loading plugins: +0ms
  meta   + meta-bump /usr/local/lib/node_modules/meta-bump +0ms
  meta   + meta-project /usr/local/lib/node_modules/meta-project +0ms
  meta   + meta-search /usr/local/lib/node_modules/meta-search +1ms
  meta
  meta Loading core plugins: +3ms
  meta   + meta-git /usr/local/lib/node_modules/meta/node_modules/meta-git +1ms
  meta   + meta-init /usr/local/lib/node_modules/meta/node_modules/meta-init +0ms
  meta   + meta-loop /usr/local/lib/node_modules/meta/node_modules/meta-loop +34ms
  meta   + meta-project (skip) +35ms
  find-module-bin looking for meta-search at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/meta-search/bin/node_modules/.bin/meta-search +0ms
  find-module-bin looking for meta-search at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/meta-search/node_modules/.bin/meta-search +0ms
  find-module-bin looking for meta-search at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/.bin/meta-search +0ms
  find-module-bin found meta-search at /usr/local/lib/node_modules/.bin/meta-search +0ms
Usage: meta-search [options] [command]

Options:
  -h, --help      display help for command

Commands:
  package         Find packages in package.json that match given criteria
  help [command]  display help for command

[jtzero]

I would post this in https://github.com/mateodelnorte/find-module-bin however based on the name I'm under assumption it is working as designed, finding the bin under the node_modules.

[jtzero]

My mistake, 1. turns out this was a commander issue and 2. it's actually resolved, my version of it was old, apologies.

[jtzero]

Actually it turns out this bug exists because commander is old

[mateodelnorte]

Up for opening a pr?

[patrickleet]

We have a forked version of commander - @mateodelnorte I know you made this commander fork but I am not clear on what the reason was for that or if the newest version of commander ever resolved this?

https://github.com/mateodelnorte/meta/blob/master/package.json#L55

It's currently 594 commits behind mainline

This branch is 18 commits ahead, 594 commits behind tj:master.

If the mainline version of commander is still not adequate for what we need maybe there's another tool we could replace it with?

[mateodelnorte]

Yeah, commander at some point made changes causing default behavior to no longer work. I created a PR to fix it and it went unmerged for ages, long enough for them to completely change their dev ethos around dependencies. Eventually they closed the PR. Unfortunate.

tj/commander.js#604

[patrickleet]

There was some more conversation about this here in the past as well: #77