'Microsoft JScript compilation error' when running npx

December 04, 2021

Do you believe #!/usr/bin/env node will impact the npm shortcut on Windows? Yes, it did.

I created npmjs clang-format-launcher package, and I expect to run it with npx clang-format-launcher or clang-format-launcher, then I run into Microsoft JScript compilation error .

The error message:

Error: Expected identifier
code: 800A03F2
Source: Microsoft JScript compilation error

If I run with node node_modules\clang-format-launcher\dist\index.js, then everything looks good.

I spent half an hour to investigate it, finally I found that the clang-format-launcher.bat is not emitted correct.

It's

"%~dp0\node_modules\clang-format-launcher\dist\index.js"   %*

but it should be

@IF EXIST "%~dp0\node.exe" (
  "%~dp0\node.exe"  "%~dp0\node_modules\clang-format-launcher\dist\index.js" %*
) ELSE (
  node  "%~dp0\node_modules\clang-format-launcher\dist\index.js" %*
)

After I revisit the document package bin,

Please make sure that your file(s) referenced in bin starts with #!/usr/bin/env node, otherwise the scripts are started without the node executable!