Arguments like --dist-url/--nodedir not respected with npm 3.10.10

[springmeyer]

Context

When someone runs npm install --some-option to install a module that uses node-pre-gyp, then node-pre-gyp notices the arguments passed and forwards to node-gyp (when a source compile is needed). The same thing is done when node-pre-gyp is called directly (rather than via npm). This argument forwarding is critical to be able to control node-gyp behavior directly (since modules that use node-pre-gyp don't directly call node-gyp, by design).

Problem

This argument passing works in all cases when arguments are passed directly to node-pre-gyp. For example node-pre-gyp build --dist-url=foo will result in a call to node-gyp build --dist-url=foo.

And this argument passing works in all cases when arguments are passed to npm and npm calls node-pre-gyp except on windows with npm 3.10.10. What I've seen is:

	mac	linux	windows
node v6/npm 3.10.10	✅	✅	❌
node v6/npm 2.15.11 (downgraded)	✅	✅	✅
node v4/npm 2.15.11	✅	✅	✅
node v0.10/npm2.15.1	✅	✅	✅

[springmeyer]

Looks like this bug also impacts npm 5.3.0 / node v8.4.0 on windows: https://ci.appveyor.com/project/Mapbox/node-pre-gyp/build/1.0.625/job/m02cx3p7chk0q4km#L53

And with those versions another problem manifests that looks like:

not ok 29 Error: Command failed 'npm install --clang=1 --msvs_version=2015 --fallback-to-build=false'
  ---
    operator: error
    expected: |-
      undefined
    actual: |-
      [Error: Command failed 'npm install --clang=1 --msvs_version=2015   --fallback-to-build=false']
    at: maybeClose (internal/child_process.js:927:16)
    stack: |-
      module.js:491
          throw err;
          ^
      
      Error: Cannot find module 'C:\projects\node-pre-gyp\test\app1\node_modules\node-pre-gyp\bin\node-pre-gyp'
          at Function.Module._resolveFilename (module.js:489:15)
          at Function.Module._load (module.js:439:25)
          at Function.Module.runMain (module.js:609:10)
          at startup (bootstrap_node.js:158:16)
          at bootstrap_node.js:598:3
      npm ERR! code ELIFECYCLE
      npm ERR! errno 1
      npm ERR! [email protected] install: `node-pre-gyp install --fallback-to-build`
      npm ERR! Exit status 1
      npm ERR! 
      npm ERR! Failed at the [email protected] install script.
      npm ERR! This is probably not a problem with npm. There is likely additional logging output above.
      
      npm ERR! A complete log of this run can be found in:
      npm ERR!     C:\Users\appveyor\AppData\Roaming\npm-cache\_logs\2017-09-08T16_49_52_844Z-debug.log
      
  ...
ok 30 should not be equal

https://ci.appveyor.com/project/Mapbox/node-pre-gyp/build/1.0.625/job/m02cx3p7chk0q4km#L112

[springmeyer]

I dig into this a bit more and have figured out why the tests are failing, but not yet how to fix. Here is what I've learned:

• On unix with you can do npm -C test/app1 install and it will: a) change into the test/app1 directory and install the tool.
• On windows with npm v2.x it works the same as on unix
• But on windows with > npm v2.x the npm -C test/app1 install behaves differently. Instead of attempting to install app1 instead it installs node-pre-gyp.

The fact that it installs node-pre-gyp makes no sense to me given that node-pre-gyp is not a dependency of test/app1 (it is not listed in the deps for that app). So I have no idea why this is happening.

But it is the cause of the test failures. What happens is that the tests expect npm -C test/app1 install to fail when an invalid argument is passed like --nodedir=invalid-value. But because that command just goes and installs node-pre-gyp it passes, which is super bizzarre.

Here is the output of npm -C test/app1/ install on windows with npm 3.10.10:

C:\projects\node-pre-gyp\test\app1\node-pre-gyp -> C:\projects\node-pre-gyp\test\app1\node_modules\node-pre-gyp\bin\node-pre-gyp
[email protected] C:\projects\node-pre-gyp\test\app1
`-- [email protected] 
  +-- [email protected] 
  +-- [email protected] 
  | `-- [email protected] 
  +-- [email protected] 
  | +-- [email protected] 
  | | `-- [email protected] 
  | +-- [email protected] 
  | | `-- [email protected] 
  | `-- [email protected] 
  +-- [email protected] 
  | +-- [email protected] 
  | `-- [email protected] 
  |   +-- [email protected] 
  |   `-- [email protected] 
  +-- [email protected] 
  | +-- [email protected] 
  | | `-- [email protected] 
  | |   `-- [email protected] 
  | |     +-- [email protected] 
  | |     `-- [email protected] 
  | `-- [email protected] 
  +-- [email protected] 
  | +-- [email protected] 
  | | +-- [email protected] 
  | | `-- [email protected] 
  | |   +-- [email protected] 
  | |   +-- [email protected] 
  | |   +-- [email protected] 
  | |   +-- [email protected] 
  | |   `-- [email protected] 
  | +-- [email protected] 
  | +-- [email protected] 
  | | +-- [email protected] 
  | | +-- [email protected] 
  | | +-- [email protected] 
  | | +-- [email protected] 
  | | +-- [email protected] 
  | | | +-- [email protected] 
  | | | `-- [email protected] 
  | | |   `-- [email protected] 
  | | +-- [email protected] 
  | | | `-- [email protected] 
  | | `-- [email protected] 
  | `-- [email protected] 
  +-- [email protected] 
  | +-- [email protected] 
  | +-- [email protected] 
  | +-- [email protected] 
  | `-- [email protected] 
  +-- [email protected] 
  | `-- [email protected] 
  |   +-- [email protected] 
  |   +-- [email protected] 
  |   | `-- [email protected] 
  |   +-- [email protected] 
  |   +-- [email protected] 
  |   `-- [email protected] 
  +-- [email protected] 
  `-- [email protected] 
    +-- [email protected] 
    +-- [email protected] 
    +-- [email protected] 
    +-- [email protected] 
    +-- [email protected] 
    `-- [email protected] 

/cc @mapsam

[springmeyer]

Hoping this will fix 9361b44

https://ci.appveyor.com/project/Mapbox/node-pre-gyp/build/1.0.770