Run the Node.js binary no matter what

You can't always assume running $ node file.js will just work. The user might have the node binary in a non-standard location. They might be using a Node.js version manager like nvm, which is sourced in a subshell and not available from the outside. It also depends from where you're trying to run it. For example, GUI apps on macOS doesn't inherit the $PATH, so the node binary would not be found. Most projects that depend on Node.js just end up telling the user to manually set the full path to the node binary in some project specific settings. Now every project has to do this. Ugh... I prefer things to just work. With this module it will.

This Bash script uses some tricks to find the Node.js binary on your system and run it.

Can be used from any environment that can spawn a process (Shell, Python, Ruby, Swift, Objective-C, etc).

$ npm install --save run-node

$ ./node_modules/.bin/run-node file.js

Or in an npm run script:

{
	"start": "run-node file.js"
}

Download the run-node file:

$ curl -sSLO https://github.com/sindresorhus/run-node/raw/master/run-node && chmod +x run-node

./run-node file.js

The cache path and error message are defined by the RUN_NODE_CACHE_PATH and RUN_NODE_ERROR_MSG environment variables. You could use them in a script or add them to your ~.bashrc.

Default config:

export RUN_NODE_ERROR_MSG="Couldn't find the Node.js binary. Ensure you have Node.js installed. Open an issue on https://github.com/sindresorhus/run-node"
export RUN_NODE_CACHE_PATH="/home/username/.node_path"

• Sindre Sorhus
• Mathias Fredriksson

MIT © Sindre Sorhus