Chokidar 3.1.1 no longer react to file changes

[ryanelian]

Describe the bug
I am using code like this:

        watch(this.finder.scssGlob, {
            ignoreInitial: true
        })
            .on('add', file => {
                file = upath.toUnix(file);
                Shout.sass(chalk.grey('tracking new file:', file));
                debounce();
            })
            .on('change', file => {
                file = upath.toUnix(file);
                Shout.sass(chalk.grey('updating file:', file));
                debounce();
            })
            .on('unlink', file => {
                file = upath.toUnix(file);
                Shout.sass(chalk.grey('removing file:', file));
                debounce();
            });

        watch(this.sourceStore.typeCheckGlobs, {
            ignoreInitial: true
        })
            .on('add', (file: string) => {
                this.sourceStore.loadFile(file).then(changed => {
                    Shout.typescript(chalk.grey('tracking new file:', file));
                    debounce();
                });
            })
            .on('change', (file: string) => {
                this.sourceStore.loadFile(file).then(changed => {
                    if (changed) {
                        Shout.typescript(chalk.grey('updating file:', file));
                        debounce();
                    }
                });
            })
            .on('unlink', (file: string) => {
                let deleted = this.sourceStore.removeFile(file);
                if (deleted) {
                    Shout.typescript(chalk.grey('removing file:', file));
                    debounce();
                }
            });

The glob pattern is something like this:

    /**
     * /project/client/css/\*\*\/*.scss
     */
    get scssGlob(): string {
        return upath.join(this.cssInputFolder, '**', '*.scss');
    }

    get typeCheckGlobs() {
        return this._typeCheckGlobs;
    }

        let tsGlobs = upath.join(folder, '**', '*.ts');
        let tsxGlobs = upath.join(folder, '**', '*.tsx');
        let vueGlobs = upath.join(folder, '**', '*.vue');

The chokidar event no longer fires. Version 3.0.2 works just fine.

Versions (please complete the following information):

• Chokidar version 3.1.1
• Node version 12.9.1
• OS version: Windows 10 1903 Build 18362.365

To Reproduce

Use something like above code / glob to detect file changes.

Expected behavior

File change triggers.

Additional context

EDIT: off-topic, just realized this issue number is 888. lucky? 😄

[paulmillr]

Please try it with chokidar 3.1.0, not 3.1.1.

[ryanelian]

Just now, confirmed that 3.1.0 work:

But 3.1.1 does not... (Also re-checked just now)

[paulmillr]

I think you're using wrong globs or something like that. We've changed path handling in 3.1.1. Will investigate.

[ryanelian]

In all above examples, I am using blob string: C:/something/like/this/**/*.ext (without backslash even on Windows thanks to upath library)

What would be the proper blob string for cases like that then?

[frigus02]

I can reproduce the issue on Windows 10 with Node v12.10.0 with the example.js from the repo. I changed to first line to

global.watcher = require('./').watch('./lib/*.js', {

Then I ran node .\example.js and changed any file in the lib folder. This is the full output (no changes logged):

C:\code\chokidar> node .\example.js
Ready

I played a bit around. The following line changes the paths from [ './lib/*.js' ] to [ 'lib\\*.js' ]:

chokidar/index.js

Line 359 in 31fd30a

paths = paths.map(path => sysPath.normalize(path));

I tried changing it to use normalizePathToUnix to instead of sysPath.normalize and ran the example again. This time it seemed to work:

C:\code\chokidar> node .\example.js
add lib\fsevents-handler.js
add lib\nodefs-handler.js
Ready
change lib\nodefs-handler.js

If you think this fix is acceptable, I'm happy to submit a PR for it.

Would be great to have a test for this as well, but I had trouble getting the tests to run properly on Windows. Are there any known issues here?

[frigus02]

I looked a bit more into this. Using normalizePathToUnix does solve the issue for globs. But it changes the behavior for other tests slightly.

• Before, when you watch a path like C:\files\todo.txt, chokidar emits change events for C:\files\todo.txt.
• With normalizePathToUnix, when you watch a path like C:\files\todo.txt, chokidar emits change events for C:/files/todo.txt.

See here, which tests would be affected by the change: master...frigus02:fix-watching-windows. Notice that I also had to normalize paths in unwatch, otherwise paths wouldn't match.

I'm not sure what the best course of action here is. I don't fully understand the issue #871, which was fixed by normalizing paths. Normalizing paths does not fix the "Expected pattern to be a non-empty string" error for me. I can still reproduce that with a path like ./ on both Windows and Linux. I'm however unable to reproduce the issue with a path like ./package.json, even without normalizing paths.

I wonder if the issue #871 has been fixed by something else and we can just revert the change here and not normalize paths. I feel like that's all I can do here. Need @paulmillr's help now 🙂.

[ryanelian]

I just saw the commits, it seems paulmillr has fixed the issue?
048f935

I personally don't mind if the emitted path become UNIX-like on Windows because upath library makes my app path handling behavior consistent without backslashes. I hate hidden surprises when dealing with mixed path. (cough TypeScript compiler service cough).

... But hey, that's just my opinion. 😄

[paulmillr]

Not really — Still debugging this shit

[paulmillr]

@ryanelian fixed in master, I think

[paulmillr]

Could someone test this?

[ryanelian]

Sure.

I tried using yarn add https://github.com/paulmillr/chokidar.git in my compiler tool project.

Looks like it's working on Windows. Haven't tested on other platforms.

[paulmillr]

@countnazgul how's your project doing?

[XhmikosR]

@paulmillr it seems it's working again.

[countnazgul]

@paulmillr just tested with v3.2.0 and it seems to work nicely! Thanks for the quick response!