ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE is not correctly set for forked child process

[stevebaxter]

The Electron version of Node includes code to set ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE=1 in the environment of child process. This is the relevant commit:

f263751

The problem comes if the caller passes in process.env as an option to child_process.fork(), this seems to be quite a common thing to do (worker-farm does this for instance). As an example, something like this:

child_process.fork("myscript.js", [], { env: process.env });

In this case, this line tries to change the actual process.env, not a copy:

f263751#diff-1dea15b19e826b37828eef6c41166ffeR57

The result is that ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE is set to "1" rather than 1 as process.env will implicitly convert all values to strings (see https://nodejs.org/dist/latest-v8.x/docs/api/process.html#process_process_env). This stops the child process running as node, and weird things can happen. In particular, the debug tools may stop working. More descriptions of these symptoms are available here:

electron/electron#18412

I suspect the solution will be to ensure we modify a copy of the environment we have been passed, for instance changing:

  // When forking a child script, we setup a special environment to make
  // the atom-shell binary run like the upstream node.
  if (!options.env) {
    options.env = Object.create(process.env);
  }
  options.env.ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE = 1;

to something like:

  // When forking a child script, we setup a special environment to make
  // the atom-shell binary run like the upstream node.
  if (options.env) {
    options.env = Object.create(options.env);
  } else {
    options.env = Object.create(process.env);
  }
  options.env.ELECTRON_RUN_AS_NODE = 1;

As a workaround, callers can explicitly pass a copy of process.env (worker-farm supports this for instance).

[MarshallOfSound]

This repository is not used any more and all node patches live in electron/electron can you raise this over there.

[stevebaxter]

Done, electron/electron#19738