feat: Implement robust browser path resolution #505

mitsuki31 · 2025-06-18T11:45:10Z

This PR addresses the long-standing TODO item in browser.js by integrating path-browserify to provide robust path normalization and resolution capabilities for browser environments.

Previously, browser.js relied on no-op implementations for normalize and resolve.

yargs-parser/browser.js

Lines 7 to 16 in 553c808

    
           const parser = new YargsParser({ 
        
             cwd: () => { return '' }, 
        
             format: (str, arg) => { return str.replace('%s', arg) }, 
        
             normalize: (str) => { return str }, 
        
             resolve: (str) => { return str }, 
        
             require: () => { 
        
               throw Error('loading config from files not currently supported in browser') 
        
             }, 
        
             env: () => {} 
        
           })

After integrating path-browserify, the normalize and resolve functions have been updated to directly reference path-browserify.normalize and path-browserify.resolve, respectively.

yargs-parser/browser.js

Lines 6 to 18 in 08254e3

    
           // Using `path-browserify` package from local dependency 
        
           import path from './vendor/path-browserify/index.js'; 
        
           const parser = new YargsParser({ 
        
             cwd: () => { return '' }, 
        
             format: (str, arg) => { return str.replace('%s', arg) }, 
        
             normalize: path.normalize,  // Use `path-browserify` 
        
             resolve: path.resolve,    // Use `path-browserify` 
        
             require: () => { 
        
               throw Error('loading config from files not currently supported in browser') 
        
             }, 
        
             env: () => {} 
        
           })

Implementation

Integration of `path-browserify` as a Vendored Module

The path-browserify library, which offers a browser-compatible API mirroring Node.js's path module (specifically Node.js v10.3), has been included directly within the vendor/path-browserify directory.
This package was fetched directly from the official npm registry (path-browserify-1.0.1.tgz) using wget.
```
wget https://registry.npmjs.org/path-browserify/-/path-browserify-1.0.1.tgz
```
I also removed the path-browserify's "test" directory to ensure the package size as small as possible.

To ensure compatibility with browser ES module imports, the path-browserify's primary entry point (index.js) has been slightly modified to use ES module exports (export default posix;).

yargs-parser/vendor/path-browserify/index.js

Lines 527 to 529 in 08254e3

    
           // module.exports = posix; 
        
           // Refactored this part to ensure it treated as ESM, which browser needs 
        
           export default posix;

`browser.js` Path Function Update

The normalize and resolve functions within the YargsParser constructor in browser.js now directly reference path-browserify.normalize and path-browserify.resolve, leveraging the new capabilities.

Build and Linting Adjustments

.eslintignore file has been reconfigured to ignore the vendor directory during linting.
The project's bundling configuration has been updated to explicitly include the contents of the vendor directory, ensuring path-browserify is correctly bundled into the final distribution.

Justification for Dependency Management Strategy (Manual Vendoring)

The decision to manually vendor path-browserify (by fetching the 1.0.1.tgz directly from the npm registry) rather than adding it as a standard npm dependency was made for the following reasons:

The path-browserify package, while functionally complete for this purpose, has not received updates on npm for a number of years. Manually vendoring allows for precise control over the exact version included in yargs-parser's browser bundle, isolating it from potential future npm dependency changes or deprecations.
This approach allows for the necessary modification of path-browserify's index.js to expose ES module exports, which is crucial for browser.js's current import structure.

Testing

<!DOCTYPE html>
<body>
  <script type="module">
    import yargs from "./browser.js";

    const argv = yargs(
      '--testPath=/foo/bar/../bazz//a/filename.txt --testPath-2=a/b/../f/../../foo/file.txt',
      {
        normalize: ['testPath', 'testPath-2']
      }
    )
    console.log(argv.testPath)
    console.log(argv.testPath2)
    console.log(argv.testPath === '/foo/bazz/a/filename.txt')  // Should return true
    console.log(argv.testPath2 === 'foo/file.txt')             // Should return true
  </script>
</body>

I am keen to discuss these considerations and explore any preferred alternative approaches to integrating Browser version of Node.js path module.

This module is independent from npm dependencies and live in `vendor` directory. As browser only support importing ES modules, I've changed a bit the module exports to use ESM instead. The `path-browserify` package matches with Node.js v10.3 API.

- Updated the `normalize` and `resolve` function to use equivalent functions from `path-browserify` package

shadowspawn · 2025-06-18T21:31:14Z

To understand a bit more about what this would allow. Is opts.normalize an option you want to use yourself in the browser? What is the use case that it helps with?

mitsuki31 · 2025-06-19T06:49:18Z

Hi @shadowspawn,

I understand that explicit path normalization/resolution might seem niche for browser environments, where there's no direct file system interaction. However, the intent behind this PR isn't to enable file system operations in the browser, but to address a known TODO in browser.js itself, indicates an acknowledgment that normalize and resolve were missing proper browser equivalents. This PR provides those.

Even in a browser, arguments often look like file paths (e.g., --config ./src/../config.json). The opts.normalize and opts.resolve functions allow yargs-parser to:

Clean up these path-like strings, for example: normalize turns ./foo//bar/../baz into /foo/baz.
Combine path-like strings, for example: resolve can combine /base and sub/path into /base/sub/path.

This ensures that yargs-parser provides predictable path string handling for browser users, just like it does in Node.js.

Hope this clarifies the intended use case!

mitsuki31 · 2025-06-19T07:27:56Z

To be clear, I'm not personally using yargs in the browser, but I wanted to help clear this TODO task and make the browser version more complete and ready for future needs where correct path string handling is useful.

shadowspawn · 2025-06-21T06:59:37Z

Interesting to see you found a module for this very purpose.

My initial thought is that vendoring in path-browserify is more overhead than we want for a feature that no one has asked about in a less common runtime. (i.e. I don't see any issues in yargs or yargs-browser mentioning normalize and browser.)

I was interested to see that according to the path-browserify README, it was included by default in some bundlers. If that is still a common pattern, a light weight approach might be to look for an available implementation supplied by the bundler.

You usually do not have to install path-browserify yourself! If your code runs in Node.js, path is built in. If your code runs in the browser, bundlers like browserify or webpack include the path-browserify module by default.

Another approach would be to make it possible to supply own implementations so end-user can implement it if needed.

It would be much smaller to only vendor the relevant routines.

I am only one maintainer! I suggest you wait for feedback from other maintainers or end users before doing more work on this.

mitsuki31 · 2025-06-21T08:56:25Z

Thank you for the clear guidance.

I understand your concerns about the overhead of the current vendoring approach for path-browserify and the current demand for this functionality in the browser runtime. To keep the queue clear, I'm glad to close this PR if the present vendoring approach doesn't seem to be the preferred direction for this project.

mitsuki31 added 4 commits June 18, 2025 10:44

refactor: Use path-browserify pkg for path resolution

1648475

- Updated the `normalize` and `resolve` function to use equivalent functions from `path-browserify` package

chore(lint): Exclude vendor directory

3bbf0f6

chore(npm): Include vendor when bundling

08254e3

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	const parser = new YargsParser({
	cwd: () => { return '' },
	format: (str, arg) => { return str.replace('%s', arg) },
	normalize: (str) => { return str },
	resolve: (str) => { return str },
	require: () => {
	throw Error('loading config from files not currently supported in browser')
	},
	env: () => {}
	})

	// Using `path-browserify` package from local dependency
	import path from './vendor/path-browserify/index.js';

	const parser = new YargsParser({
	cwd: () => { return '' },
	format: (str, arg) => { return str.replace('%s', arg) },
	normalize: path.normalize, // Use `path-browserify`
	resolve: path.resolve, // Use `path-browserify`
	require: () => {
	throw Error('loading config from files not currently supported in browser')
	},
	env: () => {}
	})

	// module.exports = posix;
	// Refactored this part to ensure it treated as ESM, which browser needs
	export default posix;

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mitsuki31 commented Jun 18, 2025

Implementation

Integration of path-browserify as a Vendored Module

browser.js Path Function Update

Build and Linting Adjustments

Justification for Dependency Management Strategy (Manual Vendoring)

Testing

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shadowspawn commented Jun 18, 2025

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mitsuki31 commented Jun 19, 2025

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mitsuki31 commented Jun 19, 2025

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shadowspawn commented Jun 21, 2025

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Integration of `path-browserify` as a Vendored Module

`browser.js` Path Function Update