nodejs / nodejs/node-gyp

Infer `nodedir` for headerfiles from execPath

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Description

  • Node Version: latest 18 / 20
  • Platform: Linux arm64/x86_64
  • Compiler: gcc
  • Module: anything

(Didn't follow for the format as this is a general capability request, for any version)


Following from https://github.com/nodejs/node-gyp/issues/812 and reading through some of the code in lib/configure.js and https://github.com/nodejs/node-gyp/blob/main/lib/find-node-directory.js, could the general strategy of inferring the nodedir through a traversal from process.execPath work to automatically find headers files even when using non-standard installation locations of node?

In other words, infer the npm_config_nodedir from the execPath, instead of requiring users set it explicitly:

export npm_config_nodedir="/my/node/install/path/18.x.x/"

node-gyp ...

My main hesitation is I don't know if this could accidentally end up with false-positive identification in a lot of the cases for some reason, or otherwise break some ecosystem usage. It could also be behind a flag or variable like --infer-nodedir / npm_config_infer_nodedir if that's a concern, though of course preferably it could be a default.

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  3. Fork the repository and make your change on a branch.
  4. Open a pull request that references the issue number.

Research direction

Start by reading lib/configure.js and lib/find-node-directory.js, then trace how npm_config_nodedir is currently obtained and used. Determine whether traversing from process.execPath can reliably locate Node headers without false positives; done means the project has an agreed implementation scope and verification for standard and non-standard installations.

Written by the indexing model from the issue text.

Assessment

Tech stack
node.js
Domain
build-system
Issue type
Feature
Difficulty
5/5
Estimated time
Over a week
Activity status
Stale
Clarity
Mostly clear
Newbie friendliness
25/100

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