[BUG] Invalid package name ".DS_Store" about cli HOT 16 CLOSED

It looks like your operating system put an invalid name in your node_modules folder. npm can't support things like this, it has to assume everything in there is something it put there. It has to error to let you know that you are now going to get unexpected results.

npm update -g does work. Because there is no global manifest it will always update to the latest version.

The solution here is to remove those files that osx put there, and configure it to stop doing that.

from cli.

Why is prefix set?

from cli.

Why is prefix set?

I just want to custom it.

from cli.

Why? npm only comes with node, so it should only be located in the location that node ships it in.

from cli.

Why? npm only comes with node, so it should only be located in the location that node ships it in.

I separated them.
I manually installed node to /opt/node/node, and set npm prefix to /opt/node/npm.

This has nothing to do with why I set the prefix, so far everything works fine with my configuration instead of this issue.
It seems that npm did not use the correct filter results when scanning the global lib directory, which caused this problem.

And here is a related issue in old repo.
npm/npm#20493

from cli.

prefix changes npm root -g, so it very well might be related. Have you tried a standard unmodified install to see if it's your modifications causing the problem?

from cli.

prefix changes npm root -g, so it very well might be related. Have you tried a standard unmodified install to see if it's your modifications causing the problem?

Would you please try following steps to repro.

touch "$(npm config get prefix)/lib/node_modules/.DS_Store"
npm update -g

from cli.

I definitely get the same error, but npm update -g isn't a command that should work anyways, since there's no global package.json to update. Global packages need to be updated manually, one at a time.

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npm update -g isn't a command that should work anyways.

The help message says it is ok.
<pkg> is optional.

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Seems like two legit issues: a documentation error, as well as "it should be failing with a clearer message".

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I bet npm update -g works fine, I often do it. This can easily update all global libraries.
The only problem is that .DS_Store is not filtered out correctly.
In addition to .DS_Store, there may be some other files that need to be filtered.
But at least all regular file type should be excluded from the results and only the folder type should be kept as package name.

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BTW, npm list -g works fine with .DS_Store.

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I tried change line 445 to following, and it works.

const paths = (await readdirScoped(nm).catch(() => []))
        .filter(p => p !== '.DS_Store')

Maybe we should fix it in readdir-scoped.js

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Possibly better logic would be, to filter out anything that can’t be a valid package name?

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Possibly better logic would be, to filter out anything that can’t be a valid package name?

I agree, Maybe we should refer to npm list -g, since it works fine.

from cli.

It looks like your operating system put an invalid name in your node_modules folder.

As we all know, macOS may place a .DS_Store file in any directory.

It's unimaginable that npm doesn't handle it.

it has to assume everything in there is something it put there

Too idealistic.

The solution here is to remove those files that osx put there, and configure it to stop doing that.

This is not a solution.

I'm starting to understand why npm is the default package manager distributed with node, but people still invent alternatives.

I will move to yarn or pnpm, whatever.

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