Breaking change after version 2.0.1 with Node v0.6

[briemens]

Recently I'm getting Travis built errors on an existing node module testing on Node v0.6.19.
This module is using Watchr, which is using type checker ~2.0.1 as a dependency.

It seems you introduced a breaking change somewhere after 2.0.1, but only marked it as a patch (by only updating the last number of the version.)

I recommend going back and change the version to 2.1.x and rollback the breaking change after 2.0.1.

> typechecker@2.0.6 preinstall /home/briemens/Development/Crafity/modules/crafity-filesystem/node_modules/watchr/node_modules/typechecker
> node ./cyclic.js


/home/briemens/Development/Crafity/modules/crafity-filesystem/node_modules/watchr/node_modules/typechecker/cyclic.js:1
'fs').existsSync
      ^
TypeError: Object #<Object> has no method 'existsSync'
    at Object.<anonymous> (/home/briemens/Development/Crafity/modules/crafity-filesystem/node_modules/watchr/node_modules/typechecker/cyclic.js:1:82)
    at Module._compile (module.js:446:26)
    at Object..js (module.js:464:10)
    at Module.load (module.js:353:31)
    at Function._load (module.js:311:12)
    at Array.0 (module.js:484:10)
    at EventEmitter._tickCallback (node.js:190:38)

npm ERR! typechecker@2.0.6 preinstall: `node ./cyclic.js`
npm ERR! `sh "-c" "node ./cyclic.js"` failed with 1
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Failed at the typechecker@2.0.6 preinstall script.
npm ERR! This is most likely a problem with the typechecker package,
npm ERR! not with npm itself.
npm ERR! Tell the author that this fails on your system:
npm ERR!     node ./cyclic.js
npm ERR! You can get their info via:
npm ERR!     npm owner ls typechecker
npm ERR! There is likely additional logging output above.
npm ERR!
npm ERR! System Linux 3.8.0-27-generic
npm ERR! command "node" "/home/briemens/.nvm/v0.6.19/bin/npm" "install" "typechecker@2.0"
npm ERR! cwd /home/briemens/Development/Crafity/modules/crafity-filesystem/node_modules/watchr
npm ERR! node -v v0.6.19
npm ERR! npm -v 1.1.24
npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
npm ERR! message typechecker@2.0.6 preinstall: `node ./cyclic.js`
npm ERR! message `sh "-c" "node ./cyclic.js"` failed with 1
npm ERR! errno {}
npm ERR!
npm ERR! Additional logging details can be found in:
npm ERR!     /home/briemens/Development/Crafity/modules/crafity-filesystem/node_modules/watchr/npm-debug.log
npm not ok
npm not ok

Cheers!

[briemens]

The problem is with cyclic.js and the existsSync function on line 1. Which is not available before node v0.8 (was path.existsSync)

The Watchr library is depending on "typechecker": "~2.0.1", which is now broken on node v0.6.

The change to fs.existsSync is breaking other dependencies at the moment.

Here is a solution for making cyclic.js work again with older versions of node.

try {
    if (require('fs').lstatSync('.git')) {
        require('child_process').spawn(
            'npm',
            ['install', '--force', require('./package.json').name],
            {env: process.env, cwd: process.cwd(), stdio: 'inherit'}
        );
    }
} catch (err) {
    return err;
}

So the problem can be solved by using lstatSync with a try/catch around it. Easy!

I tried path.existsSync as well, but node > 0.6 prints the following warning. (not recommend)

path.existsSync is now called `fs.existsSync`.

Any chance you can fix this minor compatibility issue? Thanks!

[nishantmodak]

+1. Facing the same issue. Would be good to get this compatibility fixed.

[amb26]

What is the purpose of this file cyclic.js, and why has it found its way into so many projects?

[balupton]

@amb26 if project A has a development dependency called project B that has a dependency of project A, then that creates a cyclic dependency, which npm will error about, cyclic.js fixes that error.

I'm unsure if newer versions of npm still have this issue.

[balupton]

cyclic.js is maintained by the bevry/base project, https://github.com/bevry/base/blob/master/cyclic.js

TypeChecker will be updated in coming months when it is converted along with our over projects to ES6, and will get this update - details. As it seems this update is only for Node 0.6 from 2013, I don't think this of any urgency.

[balupton]

Removed cyclic.js in v2.1.0, seems npm now handles cyclic dependencies correctly.