Create node executable shim in nodeenv's bin/ in case system node is used

[andreypopp]

Hi,

some of our people prefer using virtualenv without activating environment with activate script — by adjusting PATH env var or by referencing executables directly in venv's bin/.

I think this is worth supporting and currently I do this via putting the following script into bin/ during creating nodeenv:

#!/bin/sh
export NODE_PATH=/path/to/nodeenv/lib/node_modules
export NPM_CONFIG_PREFIX=/path/to/nodeenv
exec /path/to/system/installed/node $*

What do you think of this?

[andreypopp]

Wouldn't be better to call it node? Like python?

[ekalinin]

Wouldn't be better to call it node? Like python?

This script is installed in all cases (when used system-wide node & when used node from environment).
So, if node is installed into environment and name of this script is node they will conflict .

[andreypopp]

So, if node is installed into environment and name of this script is node they will conflict .

Probably locally-installed node should be renamed to _node then.

The point of having shim is to transparently run node and having it execute code inside venv.

[ekalinin]

Probably locally-installed node should be renamed to _node then.

Hm, i'm not sure about this.

What about to store shims in separate subdirectory?
For example:

• <path-to-env>/bin/shims/node
• or <path-to-env>/shims/node

?

[andreypopp]

What about to store shims in separate subdirectory?

Won't work for me cause that would require users to have this separate subdirectory in PATH.

[ekalinin]

Won't work for me cause that would require users to have this separate subdirectory in PATH.

Ok, for now i've added shim creation with 'node' name in case of using system-wide node (67111fd).

And i'll think a bit about renaming locally-installed node.

[andreypopp]

@ekalinin thanks!

[ekalinin]

@ekalinin thanks!

You're welcome.

[bendavis78]

This use case doesn't only apply to installations using "system-wide" node (I usually call scripts in the bin dir directly when automating deployments). Ideally, any script under <path-to-venv>/bin should behave as if it was inside the virtualenv regardless of whether or not the virtualenv is activated. Running bin/node or bin/npm should work the same way as we would expect for the python equivalents (eg, bin/pip).

Unfortunately node is not as good as python at auto-detecting where its "home" is, so I think we need a fix that makes it behave the way a python dev would expect. Maybe we could put the node binary in node.bin, and have node as the sh script that sets the environment variables?